If Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne is to be believed, Indian fugitive Mehul Choksi may have taken his girlfriend on a romantic trip to Dominica, where he was arrested. Earlier, Browne had indicated that Dominica should deport Choksi directly to India and not return him to Antigua and Barbuda because he would be protected by the constitutional rights.
Emphasising that in a globalised world where cooperation among states is required to fight and defeat criminals, he said: “We live in a globalised world where cooperation among states is required to fight and defeat criminals and to deny criminals the use of the state apparatus for protection and advancement of their criminal conduct. That is precisely why we have and continue to encourage the government of Dominica, to make him persona non grata for illegally entering their country and to deport him to India where he is still a citizen.”
The Prime Minister further urged to consider the deportation of Choksi directly to India, as a form of state cooperation to apprehend a fugitive. “We respect the jurisdiction of the court over this matter. My request on behalf of the state, for Dominica to consider deporting Choksi directly to India, as a form of state cooperation to apprehend a fugitive, is perfectly acceptable,” he said.
“This request for state cooperation could never be construed by any law-abiding entity, of integrity and legitimate purpose to be an “ill considered utterance,” he said, adding “additionally the claim that the request undermines the rule of law, or Choksi’s constitutional rights is preposterous.”
If he (Mehul Choksi) is deported to Antigua, he will continue to enjoy the legal and constitutional protections of citizenship, he said further.
Hitting back at Opposition United Progressive Party (UPP) for supporting Choksi, Browne also accused it of supporting fugitive diamantaire in order to secure campaign funding. “After mischievously accusing my administration of harbouring Mehul Choksi, who has an Interpol Red Notice, they are now seeking to sanitize this fugitive to get campaign funding. My administration’s revocation of Choksi’s citizenship has been frustrated by a litigation brought against the state,” Gaston Browne said in a statement.
He further said, “We are determined to revoke Choksi’s citizenship and to concurrently pursue his extradition to India to face criminal charges there. There has been no violation of Choksi’s legal and constitutional protections, despite the decision of my administration to revoke his citizenship.”
Choksi, however, alleged through his lawyers that he was abducted on May 23 of this year. He claimed that people with ‘links to India’ abducted him in collaboration with Antiguan officials. He was then beaten up, tortured and taken to Dominica in a vessel where he was arrested, claim Mehul Choksi’s lawyers.
Days after he was found and later arrested in Dominica, the first pictures of the India-born fugitive diamantaire surfaced on Saturday showing him sustaining several injuries. The pictures, supplied by the AntiguaNewsRoom, are showing him sustaining several injuries on his hands and the left eye which appeared bruised and swollen.
“I noticed that he was severely beaten, his eyes were swollen and had several burnt marks on his body (apparently burnt by some electronic device). He reported to me that he was abducted at Jolly Harbour in Antigua and brought to Dominica by persons whom he believed to be Indian and Antiguan police on a vessel he described to be about 60-70 feet in length,” Choksi’s Dominica-based lawyer Wayne Marsh told ANI
Choksi and his nephew Nirav Modi are wanted in India for allegedly siphoning off Rs 13,500 crore of public money from the state-run Punjab National Bank (PNB) using letters of undertaking.