Why India is unable to extradite its most wanted men

I won't be surprised if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wants to know why India so often fails to secure the extradition of criminals who slip out of the country. It is worth constituting a high-powered government panel to find out.

I think I know the reason: the quality of the evidence submitted by the Central Bureau of Investigation — India's FBI — invariably fails to stand up to scrutiny. The CBI is notorious for making up evidence and extracting confessions under duress. Either way, cases which stand up in Indian courts fall flat abroad.

Two weeks ago a Copenhagen court rejected New Delhi's desperate bid to get hold of Danish national Kim Peter Davy alias Neils Christian Neilsen to stand trial for masterminding the Purulia arms-drop which Indian authorities describe as "the biggest crime in the country's history". Refused to extradite Davy on the grounds that he would be tortured in India, the judge also commented on India's human rights record and prison conditions raising New Delhi's hackles.

Way back in December 1995, a consignment of 548 AK-47 rifles, 11.3 tonnes of ammunition, anti-tank weapons and 165 rocket was parachuted from a low-flying Russian-made AN-26 plane over Purulia in West Bengal. The arms packed in wooden boxes landed close to the international headquarters of Anand Marg, or Path of Bliss, a violent Hindu cult known for its bitter opposition to communists then ruling Bengal. Five days later, the AN-26 plane which flew to Phuket, Thailand, after dropping the cache of arms, mysteriously landed in Mumbai, giving an altogether new twist to the drama.

Indian police and intelligence officials swooped down on the plane and arrested British mercenary Peter Bleach and five-member Russian air crew. But Davy, who was on board the plane slipped past the police cordon at the airport and vanished never to be seen again.

The arms-drop triggered national hysteria. Initially, Pakistan was accused of smuggling weapons to arm secessionist rebels in India's restive north-east. Subsequently, it was portrayed as a botched RAW operation. Many believed that there was a much bigger game in which the British, Indian and probably the American governments had stakes. The operation had all the hallmarks of a CIA job — possibly one offering covert support to an Indo-British attempt to destabilise Myanmar by arming Kachin rebels fighting the military junta.

Bleach, the Russians and a few Anand Margis were tried for waging war against India — an offence punishable with death. While the Margis were released, Bleach and the Russians were convicted and given life sentences in 2000. A year later, the Russians were freed under Moscow's pressure. And in 2004 Tony Blair ensured Bleach's release from a Calcutta jail where he spent nine years.

The CBI says it launched a manhunt for Davy after he vanished from Mumbai airport on December 21, 1995. Apparently, on the CBI's request. Interpol tracked him down in Copenhagen in 2002. But CBI sleuths claim that that they spotted Davy in the company of US intelligence officers in Nairobi from where CIA reportedly backs rebels fighting Sudan's Islamic regime.

The Danish government ultimately succumbed to Interpol's and New Delhi's persistent diplomatic pressure to hand over the shadowy Davy to stand trial in India. India even gave Copenhagen a written undertaking that Davy will not be awarded capital punishment, will enjoy unrestricted round-the-clock consular access, and that he would be repatriated after his conviction to serve his term in Denmark under the provisions of the recently-enacted Repatriation of Prisoners Act.

But Davy appeal against the Danish government's decision to hand him over to India and a High Court judge blocked the extradition. The Danish judge cited India's failure to ratify United Nations Torture Convention, alleged degrading treatment in jails and widespread human rights violations for its decision. And the Danish government, in its own wisdom, has refused to appeal to the Supreme Court — a stand which New Delhi construes as an insult.

A leading lawyer tells me that the refusal to send Davy back is no doubt a major blow for India. But according to him, the provisions of India's anti-terrorism laws are against the basic tenets of justice.

"A person can be charged with committing terrorist acts based on the accounts of witnesses whose identities the police [are] not obliged to disclose even during the trial . . . [In such cases a] judge or civil servant abroad will inevitably have serious doubts about the genuineness of the legal proceedings in India and turn down [an extradition] request", he tells me.

Close on the heels of the Copenhagen verdict, a British court has ruled that it will not extradite Mohammad Hanif Umerji Patel, the alleged mastermind of an explosion which killed 17 persons in Surat in 1993, unless New Delhi permits a court-appointed human rights expert to inspect the Gujarat jail where Patel would be housed during his trial. The fugitive acquired a British passport while he was on the run.

————————————
S. N. M. Abdi is a consulting editor, writer, columnist and broadcaster from India.