Fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi appeared before the Westminister Court via videolink for a routine 28-day remand hearing today. The court further extended his custody till January 7 to conclude hearings in his extradition case.
The 49-year-old has been behind bars at Wandsworth Prison in south-west London since his arrest last year following India's extradition request. Nirav Modi is wanted in the country in connection with the estimated $2 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam case.
The final hearings in the extradition case are scheduled over two days, on January 7 and 8, 2021 when District Judge Samuel Goozee is scheduled to hear closing arguments from both sides before he hands down his judgment a few weeks later.
At the last full hearing in the case in November, Judge Goozee heard the arguments for and against the admissibility of certain witness statements provided by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) and ruled that the evidence to establish a prima facie case of fraud and money laundering against the fugitive diamantaire is broadly admissible.
He concluded that he considered himself "bound" by the previous UK court rulings in the extradition case of former Kingfisher Airlines chief Vijay Mallya.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), arguing on behalf of the Indian authorities, had stressed that the evidence, including witness statements under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), meets the required threshold for the UK court to determine whether Nirav Modi has a case to answer before the Indian judicial system.
"The argument that this is a very specific case, distinguishable from Vijay Mallya is frankly nonsense," said CPS barrister Helen Malcolm.
That Vijay Mallya has a case to answer in India in his fraud and money laundering case has cleared various levels of the UK judicial system and is currently undergoing a "confidential" legal issue before UK Home Secretary Priti Patel can consider signing off on his extradition.
Nirav Modi's barrister Clare Montgomery, who was also the defence counsel in Vijay Mallya's case, however, disputed that the Section 161 witness statements qualify as similar.
"The government of India case is not as strong as it was in Mallya," said Clare Montgomery, as she also raised a specific issue over a witness who was said he didn't speak English in his testimony for the CBI but signed a statement in English for the ED.
Nirav Modi is the subject of two sets of criminal proceedings, with the CBI case relating to a large-scale fraud upon PNB through the fraudulent obtaining of "Letters of Understanding" (LoUs or loan agreements), and the ED case relating to the laundering proceeds of that fraud.
He also faces two additional charges of "causing the disappearance of evidence" and intimidating witnesses or "criminal intimidation to cause death" added to the CBI case.
The jeweller has been in prison since he was arrested on March 19, 2019, on an extradition warrant executed by Scotland Yard and his attempts at seeking bail have been repeatedly turned down.
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