A UK court on Thursday rejected fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi’s bail request, his fifth attempt to get out of jail as he fights his extradition to India on charges of fraud and money laundering. Nirav Modi, 49, was arrested in March last year and is scheduled to face an extradition trial beginning May.
The diamond magnate is wanted in fraud cases linked to loans granted by state-run Punjab National Bank on the strength of illegal guarantees.
Nirav Modi had made three attempts for bail, offering 2 million pounds as a security for his release. In his fourth request, he doubled the security to 4 million pound. But his requests have been rejected over fears that he would flee the country.
The 49-year-old has been lodged at Wandsworth Prison in south-west London since his arrest in March last year.
In his fifth bail request decided on Thursday, Nirav Modi offered to obey ‘exceptionally stringent bail conditions’ such as house arrest and 24-hour monitoring. But the high court of England and Wales declined the request.
Judge Dove acknowledged the enhanced bail package offered that included 4 million pounds security deposit, but reiterated previous judgments that highlighted Modi’s access to considerable resources to enable him to abscond.
The package offered by Modi’s lawyer, Edward Fitzerald, included a memorandum of understanding between Modi and a security company that would be obliged to inform the police if he were to leave his central London flat.
Nicholas Hearn, lawyer for India, opposed the bail on the grounds that the company would not have the legal power to arrest him, but only to notify the police.
Modi appeared by videolink from jail, dressed in T-shirt and jeans.
Judge Dove agreed that the company’s security guard at his flat would not have any power to detain him, and by the time the police are notified and arrive, “it may be too late”. The risks Modi presented could not be obviated by the bail arrangements offered, he concluded.
Fitzerald told the court that Nirav Modi had been attacked in the Wandsworth jail several times, and had also been the subject of an extortion attempt. His mental health had deteriorated in jail, leading to further depression, the barrister contended.
Hearn told the judge that the 24-hour electronic tag can be tampered with, or cut. The offer of Modi’s phone conversations being recorded was impractical, he added, since Modi knew non-English languages, which posed new difficulties.
Judge Dove recalled previous judgements that noted the scale of allegations of fraud against Modi amounting to nearly 1 billion US dollars linked to a Mumbai branch of the Punjab National Bank.
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