Choksi Wins First Round of Court Kidnap Claim
May 14, 23
(IDEX Online) - Fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi has won the first round of a legal battle to prove he was kidnapped against his will from his new home on Antigua and Barbuda, in the West Indies.
Choksi, 64, claims India was involved in an elaborate plot to bring him back to his home country, where he is due to stand trial over the alleged $1.8bn Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud.
India does not have an extradition treaty with the Antigua and Barbuda islands, which offer citizenship for a $100,000 payment.
The islands' high court has ruled that Choksi has an "arguable case" that its police force failed to properly investigate an alleged abduction, during which Choksi says, he was violently beaten, stun-gunned, gagged and bound, and forced onto a yacht to the neighboring island of Dominica.
British barrister Michael Polak, director of Justice Abroad, which is representing Choksi, told The Guardian newspaper: "The evidence that Mr Choksi was kidnapped from Antigua and tortured during his unlawful rendition to Dominica is clear.
"It has been a long road to get to this point, and we continue to fight to secure justice for Mr Choksi."
In March Interpol lifted the red notice imposed in 2018 preventing Choksi from traveling freely.
Choksi was charged with illegally entering Dominica, but that case has been discontinued by the director of public prosecutions there.
In January he said he would happily to return to India, once his health improves, to clear his name and would welcome a special task force investigation.
File pic of Mehul Choksi