GEORGETOWN, Guyana, May 23, CMC – A 39-year-old businessman is due to re-appear in court on June 16, after he was granted GUY$350,000 (One Guyana dollar=US$0.004 cents) bail after being accused of inciting persons to commit treason.
Magistrate Dylon Bess sitting at the Diamond/Golden Grove Magistrates’ Court, also ordered that Randy Jagdeo cease making any posts on social media platforms and that he reports on the third Friday of every month to the Head of the Police Cyber Crimes Unit at Eve Leary, Georgetown.
He was also required to lodge his passport at the court.
Jagdeo, who could face life imprisonment if he is convicted for the offence, was not required to plead to the indictable Section 314 of the Criminal Law Offences Act, which states that anyone who forms an intention to levy war within Guyana in order to depose the President or any Cabinet member by force, or by force or constraint compels the Guyana government to change its measures or counsels or in order to put any force or constraint upon it in order to intimidate or overawe the National Assembly, or induce any alien with force to invade Guyana and manifests such intention by any overt act shall be guilty of a felony and liable to imprisonment for life.
The Guyana Police Force (GPF) has said that the controversial businessman has received wide public criticism over a provocative Facebook comment which stated that Essequibo belongs to Venezuela.
The police said that a sign displayed at his ‘Thousand Dollar Store’ featured the ‘One Guyana’ logo alongside a map of Guyana that excluded the Essequibo region, an oil-rich region that makes up about two-thirds of Guyana and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens.
Venezuela has announced plans to stage elections for the Essequibo region, even as the ICJ unanimously reaffirmed provisional measures granted in December 2023 and told the Spanish-speaking country that it should refrain from conducting, or preparing to conduct the elections in the Essequibo region.
CMC/gt/ir/2025