UK court refuses Nirav Modi bail for 8th time
Nirav Modi (File photo)
LONDON: A high court judge in London on Thursday has refused
fugitive Indian businessman
Nirav Modi bail for the eighth time.
Justice Fordham
said: 'There are substantial grounds for believing that if released by me on bail that applicant would fail to surrender and interfere with witnesses.'
Nirav has been in prison in the UK for over six years since he was arrested on an extradition warrant in March 2019 charged with defrauding
Punjab National Bank
of over $1 billion.
Nirav's barrister Edward Fitzgerald KC argued that Nirav had been held as an undertrial a disproportionate length of time, that all his co-defendants in India, including one Shetty, who Fitzgerald described as 'the main mover' in the scam, had got bail, and that there was no chance of Nirav absconding.
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'What the Christian Michel and Jagtar Johal and Latifa case, and countless others, show, including the murder and attempted murder in Canada and America, is that the reach of the Indian govt is practically limitless. The idea he could go to Vanuatu and there be safe from the govt of India is utterly ridiculous,' Fitzgerald said. 'They will either send a hit squad to get him or kidnap him or lean on govt to deport him to India.'
The judge questioned this, saying if the Indian govt's power were limitless, couldn't they get him in the UK?'He is safe in the UK as police give Osman warnings,' he said.
Fitzgerald claimed Michel was 'blindfolded, handcuffed and flown on private jet from the UAE to India', that Johal was 'kidnapped on the street', and Latifa was 'kidnapped' by the Indian authorities 'These make the danger of
extrajudicial retaliation
or reprisals even greater,' he said.
He said Nirav did not have the resources to flee as his assets had been depleted through being frozen and confiscated. He also said the alleged interference with witnesses was seven years ago, and since then there had been no further such incident even though he has a phone in prison.
'Six years in jail is too long' he said, explaining a 'confidential legal matter' that began in April 2018 was holding up his extradition.
Nicholas Hearn, representing the Indian govt, said if his fears of state reprisals were genuine, what were the chances of him voluntarily surrendering to go back to India?
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