UK-India Extraditions: Ripe for reform?
Prasun Sonwalkar/New Delhi Filed on May 8, 2021 | Last updated on May 9, 2021 at 06.37 am
India and Britain signed an extradition treaty in 1992, but since then there have been only rare returns of India’s most wanted. As the Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi cases roll on, it may be time to reform the template.
How it started…how it’s going: The contours of a popular meme format are useful to put the story of extraditions from the UK to India in context. When India’s home minister S B Chavan and British foreign secretary Ken Clarke signed an extradition treaty on September 22, 1992, the backdrop was Sikh and Kashmiri separatism. The pact took effect from November 1993, with much hope that it would prevent India’s most wanted from seeking a safe haven in the United Kingdom. But the simple truth is that New Delhi has since sought over 40 individuals facing a range of criminal charges from Britain, but only two have made the re
Julian Assange faces Supreme Court to battle extradition
Julian Assange faces Supreme Court to battle extradition
1st Feb 2012 12:47pm | By Editor Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange will learn his fate at the Supreme Court this week after battling extradition attempts to Sweden.
Assange, a Queensland-born Australian, will appear in Britain’s highest court to learn the outcome of his appeal against extradition to Sweden, where is accused of rape, sexual molestation and coercion involving two women.
Assange, 40, has been holed up for a year at supporter’s country pile in England, shackled on the right ankle with an electronic monitor.
The legal action against him, since he was taken into custody in the UK in December 2010 under a controversial European Arrest Warrant (EAW), has generated widespread publicity.
15:31 EDT, 7 May 2021
A university student allegedly wrote we did not finish the job in regard to the Holocaust on an extreme right-wing website, a court has heard.
Andrew Dymock, 23, wrote articles on the now banned group System Resistance Network s (SRN) website in 2017 and received donations for the organisation, the Old Bailey was told.
The defendant, from Bath in Somerset, is on trial on 15 charges, including 12 terrorism-related alleged offences, all of which he has denied.
Andrew Dymock (pictured) allegedly joined white supremacist groups Sonnenkrieg Division and System Resistance Network
The politics student denies all charges and says any connection to the far-right groups was in order to conduct research for his dissertation on the rise of nationalism.
12:27 EDT, 6 May 2021
A neo-Nazi student used social media to stir up a race war against ethnic minorities, the Old Bailey heard today.
Andrew Dymock, from Somerset, allegedly promoted the white supremacist group the System Resistance Network (SRN) through a Twitter account and a website.
Dymock, who studied politics at Aberystwyth University, is accused of 15 charges, including 12 terrorism-related alleged offences.
He used online platforms to promote and raise money for SRN, which preached zero-tolerance to non-whites, Jewish and Muslim communities and described homosexuality as a disease , jurors were told.
Online articles included the titles Join your local Nazis , The truth about the Holocaust and Homosexuality, the eternal social menace .
Former Eskom contractor arrested in UK, released on hefty bail with strict conditions Independent Directorate said arrest paves the way to extradite Michael Lomas 23 April 2021 - 10:57 Image: Waldo Swiegers/Sunday Times
Former Eskom contractor Michael Harry Lomas has been arrested in the UK, where he is a citizen.
Spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) Investigative Directorate (ID), Sindisiwe Seboka, said Lomas was arrested in London on April 15 and appeared before the Westminster magistrate’s court on Thursday.
“He was granted bail of £100,000 (about R1.9m) and further submitted additional surety in the sum of £250,000 (about R4.9m). The appearance means Lomas’s extradition to SA has begun in earnest in the UK,” Seboka said.