Hindustan Times (Delhi)

HC FREES SLOVENIAN MAN DETAINED FOR ‘GUNRUNNING’

- Richa Banka richa.banka@htlive.com

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has quashed the detention order of Slovenian national l evel shooter Boris Sobotic Mikolic who was arrested from the Delhi airport last year for his alleged involvemen­t in a multi-crore gunrunning case.

Mikolic had filed a plea in the Delhi High Court challengin­g his detention order by the Directorat­e of Revenue Intelligen­ce under the customs and anti- smuggling law, COFEPOSA.

In his appeal, Mikolic, claimed that he had given a detailed response to the allegation­s of gunrunning against him but the DRI did not take into account his defence and persisted with the detention order against him.

According to his plea, Mikolic opened a gun shop inside a shooting range in Maribor, Slovenia, in 2007. Initially, he sold weapons to mainly Slovenian buyers but later as shooters came for practice from all over the world, he got acquainted with many of them from various countries and this included some Indian shooters.

Gradually, he closed his shop and started travelling to various parts of the world as a travel agent. In April 2017, he came to India along with two Indians— Amit Goel and Anil Langan.

The plea said that the trio was detained by the DRI on the exit gate of the IGI airport despite not possessing any arms and ammunition.

He also claimed that he was made to give statements as per the diktats of the DRI officers and forced to admit, among other things, that two pistols recovered from Langan were actually his and that his wife’s company had sold arms to the two Indians at lesser price and he had come here to collect the money in cash.

Following this, his bail was rejected twice and he was released on statutory bail after the lapse of 60 days.

BORIS SOBOTIC MIKOLIC WAS ARRESTED FROM DELHI AIRPORT FOR HIS INVOLVEMEN­T IN A MULTICRORE GUNRUNNING CASE

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