Pannun ‘murder’ plot: Czech court rules Indian man Nikhil Gupta can be extradited to US. What next?
The Prague high court has ruled that the Czech Republic can extradite to the United States Nikhil Gupta, an Indian man accused by the US of involvement in an unsuccessful plot to kill Khalistani separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil, the justice ministry said on Friday.
Nikhil Gupta, 52, was charged by US prosecutors in New York in an indictment unsealed in November last year with working with an Indian government employee in the foiled plot to kill Pannun, who holds dual US and Canadian citizenships. Gupta was arrested in Prague, the Czech Republic on June 30, 2023, and is being held there currently. The US government is seeking his extradition to America.
“After the court’s decision has been delivered to all parties, all file material in the case will be submitted to the ministry of justice. Minister of justice Pavel Blažek will decide whether or not to allow Mr. Gupta’s extradition to the US at a later date,” Czech justice ministry spokesperson Vladimir Řepka said.
If the minister of justice has doubts about the correctness of the court’s decision in a given matter, he can submit a proposal to the Supreme Court to review their decision within three months from the day the matter was submitted to the ministry, the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that the time frame for the minister’s decision cannot be assumed at this point. “The requested party (Gupta) can be expected to use all available means to prevent extradition,” Řepka said.
Czech news website www.seznamzpravy.cz, which first reported on the appeals decision, said Gupta had argued his identity was mistaken and that he was not the man the US was looking for. He described the case as political, the website said.
The Prague high court rejected Gupta’s appeal against a December decision by a lower court that ruled that extradition is allowed, news agency Reuters reported. A spokesperson for the Prague high court declined immediate comment, it added.
The Czech news website quoted Gupta’s lawyer as saying he would ask the minister not to extradite Gupta, and would also take the case to the Constitutional Court.
Earlier, the lawyer claimed that Gupta was being subjected to human rights violations, including extended solitary confinement, while in custody in the Czech Republic. In court documents, it is claimed that Gupta was last in the US in 2017.
His attorney Jeff Chabrowe filed a ‘Motion to Compel Production of Discovery’ on January 4 in the US district court, Southern District of New York, requesting the court to direct federal prosecutors to provide “the defence materials relevant to its ability to defend the instant charges.”
In the motion, his attorney stated that Gupta, an Indian national, “was last in the United States in 2017.”