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Jan 09, 2015 News
Dino Bouterse, son of Suriname’s President, Desi Bouterse, who pleaded guilty to cocaine and terrorist charges last August, is to be sentenced next month.
Bouterse was set to be sentenced on Tuesday but his lawyer, Michael Hueston, in November wrote Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, of the United States District Court, Southern District of New York, asking for an adjournment to February 6. The sentencing will now be held on February 10, according to court documents.
Bouterse will remain in custody until the sentencing.
The lawyer, in his request for the adjournment, said that the defence needs more time to complete several reports, including a mitigation report.
“In addition, information we believe necessary for Mr. Bouterse’s sentencing is only available in Suriname, and we require more time to obtain the material. Both the reports and outstanding information will be part of the defence’s analysis,” he said.
The 41-year-old Bouterse, in August, pleaded guilty to charges of attempting to smuggle cocaine to the U.S. and aid Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
“In 2013, I knowingly provided a false Surinamese passport to a person I believed to be associated with Hezbollah, an organization I knew to be designated a terrorist organization by the United States,” Bouterse said at a court hearing last year.
The defendant also pleaded guilty to conspiring to import narcotics and carrying a firearm during a drug-trafficking crime. Bouterse faces a sentence of between 15 years and life in prison and he is being accused of attempting to assist individuals he believed to be Hezbollah representatives, to establish a base in Suriname to attack Americans.
He reportedly negotiated a paycheck of initially US$2M. The defendant was arrested in 2013 in Panama and subsequently extradited to the United States on charges that he conspired to smuggle cocaine to the U.S.
Edmund Muntslag, a co-defendant, was arrested in Trinidad and Tobago at the same time, and is currently fighting a court battle there to prevent his extradition to the U.S.
Instead of the anti-tank launcher named in the indictment, as part of a plea deal, Bouterse admits that he was brandishing a handgun when he showed persons, who later appeared to be undercover agents, a quantity of cocaine in his office in Paramaribo.
Judge Shira Scheindlin had warned in August that if a terrorism enhancement applies to Bouterse’s case, his minimum sentence could double from 15 years to 30 years behind bars.
The undercover operation to trap the defendant took about nine months. Documents indicate that Bouterse was approached by two confidential informants of the Drug Enforcement Administration, who claimed to have ties with the Mexican drug organization, who were looking to put up shop in Suriname.
According to the indictment, Bouterse promised that he could help with the cocaine trafficking operation and that he also could provide firearms. A test run of 10 kilos cocaine he tried to export from Suriname to the US, was seized in Trinidad and Tobago.
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