Female drug accused extradited to Florida

Dwarika’s extradition was very low-keyed as very few persons knew what was happening.

With Piarco International Airport operating on a generator after a power failure, 45-year-old Dwarika was brought to the airport in handcuffs at 12.45 pm in time for the 2.37 pm flight aboard American Airlines flight 1668 bound for Miami.

Dwarika was escorted to the airport by members of the Organised Crime and Narcotics Unit (OCNU) and two US Marshals who arrived here on Wednesday for Dwarika.

Dwarika, of Red Hill, D’Abadie, was the third person to be extradited within the past seven weeks to face five Grand Jury charges. Hafeez Mohammed and Ronald Rackal were extradited to Miami on May 5.

Dwarika is the second woman to be extradited from Trinidad to the US. Lolita Saroop was the first. She was extradited in 1989 to the US Virgin Islands. She was later convicted and served her prison term before she was deported to Trinidad.

Meanwhile, a date has been set for Mohammed’s sentencing after he pleaded guilty to the charges last week. He will be sentenced on August 26 at 11.30 am in the United States Federal Court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

But Rackal will go on trial on August 15 after entering a not guilty plea.

Mohammed and Rackal were escorted to Florida on May 5 by four US Marshals to face a total of five Grand Jury charges. Mohammed appeared before Judge James Cohn where he pleaded guilty. According to the terms of the plea agreement Mohammed faces ten years to life imprisonment.

Mohammed and Rackal are charged with conspiring to traffic cocaine, and the importing and exporting of cocaine between November 30, 2000 and January 22, 2001. Mohammed and Rackal were arrested and charged with Jitman Sookdeo, 35, Ramesh Doon, 21, and Indrawatee Dwarika after they were allegedly found by members of the OCNU at a warehouse at Orange Field Road, Freeport, on January 22, 2001, with 542 kilos of cocaine stacked among cassava.

The day before they were due to go on trial at the Port-of-Spain High Court in November 2004, the five were arrested on a provisional warrant for extradition to the US.

Rackal, Mohammed and Dwarika were later ordered to be extradited by Chief Magistrate Sherman Mc Nicolls, but Dwarika filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus challenging her extradition. However, on June 16, Madame Justice Judith Jones dismissed the habeas corpus application, paving the way for Dwarika to be extradited.

The Grand Jury charge against Dwarika:

On or about January 22, 2001, in Miami-Dade County, in the Southern District of Florida and elsewhere, the defendants, RONALD RACKAL, HAFEEZ MOHAMMED JITRAM SOOKDEO, RAMESH DOON, and Indrawatee DWARIKA, did knowingly and intentionally ATTEMPT to import into the United States from a place outside thereof, a controlled substance.