The man suspected of having killed three people in Guyana was arrested on Tuesday upon his arrival in China, the country where he comes from. The suspect was arrested at Beijing airport before being handed over to authorities. But can he be extradited?
“This is now a matter of judicial diplomacy,” raises Yves le Clair, the public prosecutor of Cayenne, recalling that “China does not extradite its nationals”.
During the night from Friday to Saturday, the bodies of a man and two women were discovered, with their throats cut, in a home in Cayenne. The first was the manager of an adjoining grocery store. The other two, members of his family. They were his 57-year-old sister and a young woman born in 2004. All were “of Asian origin”, according to the firefighters.
No preferred track
Identified thanks to video surveillance cameras posted inside the business, the suspect, who allegedly “acted alone”, quickly fled to neighboring Suriname, whose border is approximately 250 kilometers from Cayenne. He then boarded a flight to the Netherlands on Sunday, before a final plane to China.
No avenue is favored at this time. A judicial investigation for assassination was opened and an international arrest warrant was issued.
In Guyana, many neighborhood grocery stores are run by traders of Asian origin, and are frequently the target of violence. In August 2022, one of them was killed in his business during a shooting following a robbery.