Modi can Appeal Extradition because he's a Suicide Risk
August 10, 21
(IDEX Online) - Fugitive diamond billionaire Nirav Modi has been granted the right to appeal his extradition to India, after a judge ruled he was severely depressed and could kill himself.
Modi, 50, (pictured) is accused of fraudulently using letters of undertaking offered by the Punjab National Bank (PNB) in an alleged $1.85bn fraud.
He was arrested in London in March 2019 as India's most wanted man, and has been in prison ever since.
In February a district judge at Westminster magistrates' court ruled there was no bar to extraditing Modi, despite an uncontested diagnosis of severe depression. In April the British Home Secretary ordered that he should be sent back to India to stand trial.
But on Monday a High Court judge granted Modi the right to appeal his extradition. Modi's legal team argued at a hearing last month that the district judge had been wrong to discount his risk of suicide because it was deemed to be "not immediate".
No date has yet been set for the appeal hearing.