New Delhi:
The High Court will take up the petition of the Delhi Police urging the court to drop MCOCA charges against jailed gangster Abu Salem. This is because imposition of these charges have jeopardised Salem's extradition.
The Portuguese High Court recently ruled that Salem should be brought back from India as the latter has violated the terms and conditions of the extradition treaty according to which, no charge that carries a punishment of life imprisonment or death sentence, can be imposed on the accused.
Abu Salem had approached the anti-terror court (TADA) with a plea not to produce him in any court till the conclusion of the proceedings in Lisbon. This was a day after the Portuguese High Court cancelled his extradition to India. In his plea, Salem also argued that the trial against him in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts case cannot go on after the Portuguese court order.
Salem, a key accused in the Mumbai serial blasts case along with fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim, and his girlfriend Monica Bedi, were extradited to India on November 11, 2005, after a legal process in Portugal that lasted for three years. Salem is to face trial in nine cases.