The High Court of Dominica has again restrained the formal extradition of fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi and said that he should be allowed to meet legal counsels. Justice M E Birnie Stephenson has stated that removing Choksi from the Commonwealth of Dominica until further hearing of this application will be continued.
The the next hearing will be on June 2.
The court further stated that Choksi must be taken to the Dominica China Friendship Hospital for medical attention and a Covid-19 test.
According to a report published in Hindustan Times, Antigua and Barbuda police chief Atlee Rodney has denied that Choksi was abducted by the force. In a video interview, Rodney said, “We have no information or indication that Mehul Choksi was forcefully removed from Antigua. The only assertion we are hearing is from the attorney (of Mehul Choksi) and Dominica police is not confirming that story. We have no involvement in his movement from Antigua to Dominica or wherever he left.”
However, Choksi has claimed that he was abducted, forced to get into a vessel from Antigua’s Jolly Harbour and taken to Dominica.
Moreover, the Dominica police has booked Choksi for illegally entering the country.
The 62-year-old diamantaire, who went “missing” from Antigua and later captured by police in Dominica, is likely to be repatriated to Antigua and Barbuda, the Dominican Ministry of National Security and Home Affairs had said. “Mehul Choksi is in Dominica only and he will be sent back to Antigua when everything is ascertained,” Lincoln Corbette, the acting police chief of Dominica told Hindustan Times.
Diamantaire Choksi is wanted in a Rs 13,500 crore loan fraud in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) in India.
Choksi was reported “missing” by his family members and lawyer Vijay Aggarwal after he went for dinner in his car in Antigua and Barbuda on Sunday and didn’t return. Later, police in Dominica captured Choksi on Tuesday night (local time) after an Interpol Yellow Notice was issued against him by Antigua and Barbuda.
Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne said that he has asked Dominica to hand the diamantaire over to India directly. “We asked them not to repatriate him to Antigua. He needs to return to India where he can face the criminal charges levelled against him,” Antigua News Room, a media outlet, quoted Browne’s interaction with journalists in Antigua and Barbuda.
However, Choksi’s lawyer Vijay Aggarwal has now claimed that “marks of torture” have been reported on Choksi’s body. “I have been told that there are marks of torture on the body. Now, we are trying our very best in Dominica for legal recourse so that he is sent back to Antigua,” Aggarwal told news agency ANI.
The lawyer further claimed that Choksi was forcefully picked from Antigua and then taken to Dominica. “…He (Choksi) has narrated that he was picked up by various people from jolly harbour in Antigua. And then he was taken to Dominica. And he was there on Sunday and then he was taken to the police station on Monday,” he said.
Efforts are on now to bring back Choksi to India.
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