Choksi’s legal team in London approaches Metropolitan Police

PTI, Jun 10, 2021, 7:25 PM IST

New Delhi: The legal team of fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi in London has approached the Metropolitan Police under the “universal jurisdiction” provision to investigate his alleged kidnapping from Antigua and Barbuda to neighbouring Dominica, lawyer Michael Polak said.

Polak said Choksi was removed from Antigua and Barbuda, where as a citizen he enjoys rights to approach the British Privy Council as last resort in cases on his citizenship and extradition, to Dominica where these rights are not available to him.

He said English courts and British Police have “universal jurisdiction” to probe such cases wherever they take place.

In a media interaction through video conferencing, Polak who is part of Choksi”s defence team said Metropolitan Police has a unit to investigate torture, war crimes and genocide wherever they take place.

Polak said Metropolitan police has said that they would send an investigator to see what has happened.

“The process is with Metropolitan police and we will let them carry out their investigations. We say in this case there is evidence of torture,” he said.

Polak, who seems to have done a thorough research on the circumstances in which Choksi was abducted, strongly indicated but stopped short of saying it was an handiwork of Indian agencies.

“I think the motive really speaks for itself. It is very important thing to look at. India obviously wants to try to remove Choksi to India. Had he signed a piece of paper that said he has already been there? The fact that there was an Indian plane in Dominica soon after shows what was going on here,” he said.

Polak has alleged that people involved in the kidnapping had conducted a dry run in April.

Giving details of the abduction attempt, Polak said Barabara Jabarica, who lured Choksi to her AirBNB accommodation on May 23, had specifically asked the owner if there is a place for docking a small boat in the backyard.

Showing chats between Jabarica and owner of the properties, Polak said she had discussed taking two adjoining properties after getting confirmation about docking place for boats.

Polak alleged that one property was used by people with her who were part of kidnapping team.

The lawyer claimed that soon after the kidnapping, Jabarica left Antigua and Barbuda in a private plane to Dominica at 7.26 PM as she felt safe from investigation.

In the complaint, Polak has reportedly named Gurdip Bath, Gurjit Singh Bhandal and Gurmit Singh besides Jabarica.

Bath and Bhandal are citizens of St Kitts and the UK respectively while Singh is an Indian national residing in the UK.