Jet sent to fly Choksi to India: Antigua PM
NEW DELHI: India has sent a private jet to Dominica with documents linked to the deportation of fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda Gaston Browne said on Sunday, even as officials in New Delhi indicated that the man wanted in the Punjab National Bank fraud case continued to be an Indian as his move to surrender his citizenship was not accepted by the government.
Indian-born Choksi mysteriously disappeared from Antigua and Barbuda, whose citizenship he holds, on last Sunday, but was detained by Dominican police on Tuesday night on charges of illegally entering the island. The two islands are roughly 100 nautical miles apart.
Choksi may have left Antigua and taken a boat ride to neighbouring Dominica to have dinner or a “good time” with his girlfriend, the Antigua and Barbuda PM told a radio show in his country. There was, however, no immediate confirmation from Indian officials on Browne’s remarks.
A Bombardier Global 5,000 jet of Qatar Executive mysteriously landed at Dominica’s Douglas Charles airport on Saturday. It’s publicly accessible flight path showed that it took off from New Delhi on May 28 and reached Dominica via Madrid.
PM Browne, who has been vocal about not accepting Choksi back in his country after he was caught in Dominica, said: “My understanding is that [the] Indian government has sent certain documentation from courts in India to confirm that Choksi is indeed a fugitive.” These documents, Browne added, will be utilised in a court case in Dominica, where a judge is hearing the matter and has put a stay on his repatriation till Wednesday.
Indian officials are in touch with their counterparts in Dominica to make an attempt to bring him back through the deportation route, because India has no extradition arrangements with the Caribbean country, people tracking developments said in Delhi.
But those efforts suffered a temporary setback after the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court agreed to hear a habeas corpus petition by Choksi’s lawyers, and ordered that he should not be removed from the country until further orders.
“The Indian government seems to be going all out to make sure he is repatriated to India to stand trial,” Browne told the FM channel in Antigua. The interview was posted by Antigua Newsroom on its website.
On the circumstances under which Choksi reached Dominica, Browne said: “The information that we are getting is that Mehul Choksi may have taken his girlfriend to Dominica probably to have dinner or have a good time and so on and got caught. That would have been a monumental error because in Antigua he is a citizen, we could not deport him.”