Suicide risk looms over Nirav extradition appeal

NIRAV’S LAWYERS sought to establish the grounds for a full High Court appeal hearing by claiming it would be oppressive to extradite him due to his mental condition that could lead to suicidal impulses.

London, July 21: Nirav Modi faces a substantial risk of suicide amid an overwhelming impact of

Covid-19 at Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai, where he will be lodged on being extradited, the High Court in London was told during an extradition appeal hearing on Wednesday.

The 50-year-old diamond merchant, wanted in India to face charges of fraud and money laundering in the estimated $2-billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam case, observed the remotely held court proceedings from his Wandsworth Prison in south-west London as his lawyers argued for permission to appeal against his extradition ordered by District Judge Sam Goozee in February and certified by United Kingdom Home Secretary Priti Patel in April.

During the renewal application hearing before Justice Martin Chamberlain, Nirav’s lawyers sought to establish the grounds for a full High Court appeal hearing by claiming it would be oppressive to extradite him due to his mental condition that could lead to suicidal impulses.

Nirav’s barrister Edward Fitzgerald argued that Judge Goozee made a succession of errors in his ruling in favour of extradition in February, when he concluded that not only was Nirav’s severe depression not unusual given his incarceration, but that he did not exhibit an immediate impulse to commit suicide. The District Judge was wrong to hold that there was nothing unusual about the Appellant’s (Nirav Modi) mental condition; and wrong to focus on his present fitness to plead, said Fitzgerald.

As to the District Judge’s conclusion that the Applicant’s condition will improve on his return and there will be an amelioration of his current conditions of detention, that finding was perverse on the evidence before him and unsustainable in the light of the new evidence.

It was based on his assessment that the conditions in the prison at Arthur Road, Mumbai will be better than they are at HMP Wandsworth, he noted.