Modi extradition: Final hearings in UK court this week

FUGITIVE diamond merchant Nirav Modi, wanted in India over defaulting on bank loans was last Tuesday (29) further remanded in custody until January 7 by a UK court hearing his extradition case.

The 49-year-old businessman, who has been behind bars at Wandsworth Prison in south-west London since his arrest last year following India’s extradition request for him, appeared via videolink for a routine 28-day remand hearing before Westminster Magistrates’’ Court in London.

The final hearings in the extradition case are scheduled over two days, on Thursday-Friday (January 7 and 8), when District Judge Samuel Goozee is scheduled to hear closing arguments from both sides before he hands down his judgment later.

At the last full hearing in the case in November, Judge Goozee heard the arguments for and against the admissibility of certain witness statements provided by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) and ruled that the evidence to establish a prima facie case of fraud and money laundering against the fugitive diamantaire is broadly admissible.

He concluded that he considered himself “bound” by the previous UK court rulings in the extradition case of former Kingfisher Airlines chief Vijay Mallya.

Modi is the subject of two sets of criminal proceedings, with the CBI case relating to a large-scale fraud relating to Punjab National Bank through the fraudulent obtaining of “Letters of Understanding” (LoUs or loan agreements).

India’s Enforcement Directorate case relates to the laundering of the proceeds of that fraud.

Modi also faces two additional charges of “causing the disappearance of evidence” and intimidating witnesses or “criminal intimidation to cause death” added to the CBI case.

The jeweller has been in prison since he was arrested on March 19, 2019, on an extradition warrant executed by Scotland Yard and his attempts at seeking bail have been repeatedly turned down.

The charges against him centre around his firms Diamonds R Us, Solar Exports and Stellar Diamonds.