UK court rules no 'real risk' in Tihar Jail to extradition of alleged bookie Chawla

Agencies
November 17, 2018

London, Nov 17: The UK High Court on Friday quashed a lower court's order against extraditing alleged bookie Sanjeev Kumar Chawla to India and directed the District Judge to re-start extradition proceedings against him after being convinced with the assurances by the Indian government on the safety of prison conditions in New Delhi's Tihar jail.

Chawla, a key accused in the cricket match-fixing scandal involving former South African captain Hansie Cronje in 2000, had won his case against extradition to India last year after the Westminster Magistrates' Court here concluded there was a prima facie case to answer but his human rights could not be guaranteed in Tihar jail, where he was to be held.

The High Court ruled that it is convinced with the assurances provided by the Indian government regarding the safety of prison conditions in New Delhi's Tihar jail as it quashed the lower court's order against extraditing the 50-year-old.

In a judgment handed down in the Royal Courts of Justice here, Lord Justice Leggatt and Justice Dingemans upheld the Indian government's appeal against that order and directed the District Judge to re-start extradition proceedings against Chawla.

The judges noted that a third assurance, provided by the Joint Secretary to the Government of India in June, promises the accused of accommodation in a cell to be occupied exclusively by him, with proper "safety and security" and complying with the "personal space and hygiene requirements" the court expects.

It also makes further guarantees on medical facilities and protection from intra-prisoner violence in the jail.

"In these circumstances, having regard to all of the information available to this Court about Tihar prisons, the terms of the third assurance (which was not before the District Judge) are sufficient to show that there will be no real risk that Mr Chawla will be subjected to impermissible treatment in Tihar prisons," the High Court judgment concludes.

In an earlier ruling in May, the High Court sought these further assurances from India before making a final decision on the government's appeal in the case.

"The effect of the successful appeal is that the order of the District Judge to discharge Mr Chawla has been quashed, with the case being remitted back to the District Judge to proceed as she should have done," noted a statement from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which represented the Indian government in the case.

A date for a fresh hearing in the case will now be set by Westminster Magistrates' Court in coming months.

The CPS had argued that the October 2017 ruling by the magistrates' court reflected a complete disregard of the "solemn diplomatic assurance" by India that Chawla will be treated within internationally-accepted norms for prison conditions.

The defence team, on the other hand, argued that District Judge Rebecca Crane had been right in turning down the extradition request on human rights ground.

"India is a mature and solid democracy, with which we have had a strong extradition relationship," noted CPS barrister Mark Summers, who is the barrister representing the Indian government in another high-profile extradition case that of liquor baron Vijay Mallya.

Mallya, wanted in India on fraud and money laundering charges amounting to nearly Rs 9,000 crore, has denied the allegations and disputed the jail conditions at Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai as part of his defence. A verdict in his case is expected next month at Westminster Magistrates' Court.

In Chawla's case, District Judge Crane's judgment dated October 16, 2017, had accepted a prima facie case against Chawla over his role in the fixing of "cricket matches played between India and South Africa during the tour of the South African Cricket Team to India under the captainship of Hansie Cronje in February-March 2000".

However, on hearing expert evidence from Dr Alan Mitchell, a licensed medical practitioner and a former medical officer with the Scottish prison system, she ruled in favour of Chawla on the grounds that his human rights would be violated in Tihar jail under Section 87, Article 3, relating to "prohibition of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment".

Mallya's defence team has also argued that India's jail cells are "far from satisfactory" and used the same UK prisons expert as Chawla's team, Dr Alan Mitchell, to back up their claims.

According to court documents in the Chawla extradition case, the Delhi-born businessman had moved to the UK on a business visa in 1996, where he has been based while making trips back and forth to India.

After his Indian passport was revoked in 2000, the 50-year-old obtained a UK passport in 2005 and is now a British citizen.

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News Network
November 13,2024

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Beirut: The Israeli army on Tuesday continued to launch attacks against civilians in Lebanon, targeting them in several areas without prior evacuation warnings.

However, 13 airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the space of only three hours were preceded by evacuation warnings.

The attacks caused no injuries but resulted in widespread destruction of residential buildings and commercial, medical and educational centers.

The airstrikes in southern Lebanon and Bekaa region, reaching Akkar in Lebanon’s far north, erased any hope of a near-term ceasefire settlement.

The strikes were accompanied by an announcement on Israel’s Channel 14 that “the Israeli army has expanded its operations in southern Lebanon to areas it had not reached since the beginning of the ground operation.”

About 50 days have passed since Israel intensified its hostile operations in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah. The death toll from these confrontations and attacks has passed 3,200, with more than 14,000 wounded.

For the first time, an airstrike targeted a mountainous area between Baalchmay and Aabadiyeh on the road leading to Aley, destroying a building housing displaced people.

The mayor of Baalchmay, Adham Al-Danaf, confirmed that “the airstrike targeted a residential building in the Dhour Aabadiyeh area.”

The initial toll from the Ministry of Health showed “five people killed and two injured.”

The raids that targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs for the first time in the morning, unlike nightly raids before, caused huge destruction. Those who evacuated their homes after Israeli warnings, used their phones to record the collapse of empty buildings in Sfeir, Haret Hreik, Bir Al-Abed, Mrayjeh, Laylaki and Hadath.

Israeli warplanes also targeted Tyre, where a strike on a building killed three people and injured many others, while a raid on Tefahta killed a man identified as Kifah Khalil and his family.

Attacks were widespread, with Yater and Zebqine subject to artillery shelling, a civilian being killed in Hermel, and further attacks on Bouday and an area between the towns of Srifa and Arsoun.

A raid on the town of Siddiqin killed two people and injured several others, while an attack on the Mechref farm led to one fatality and multiple injuries.

The search for those missing after an Israeli raid on the town of Ain Yaacoub in Akkar, in the northernmost part of Lebanon, continued until dawn.

During the operation, 14 bodies were retrieved, identified as those of residents displaced from the town of Arabsalim in the Iqlim Al-Tuffah area of the south, along with members of a Syrian family, a mother and three of her children. Additionally, there were 10 people in critical condition.

The targeted residence belongs to a Lebanese citizen, Hussein Hashim, who is reported to be a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

An airstrike on the town of Saksakiyeh in the Sidon region on Monday night resulted in yet another tragedy.

It appeared that the intended target was the Shoumer family, who just days before lost Hussein Amin Shoumer and his two sisters in a drone strike near Al-Awali River.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued additional evacuation warnings for towns in the southern region along the Litani River, which, according to estimates from the mayors, are currently 90 percent uninhabited.

In the meantime, Hezbollah announced its continued efforts to “combat the intrusions of Israeli forces and to strike military installations and towns in the north.”

Hezbollah said in a statement that it confronted “an Israeli Hermes 450 drone in the airspace of Nabatieh and forced it to leave Lebanese airspace.”

The party also announced that it targeted “Kfar Blum settlement with a rocket salvo.”

On the Israeli side, air raid sirens sounded in areas of Upper and Western Galilee and in the town of Kiryat Shmona and its surroundings.

The Israeli army confirmed that “a drone exploded in Nesher, east of Haifa, without activating the air raid sirens,” and that “a drone launched from Lebanon crashed into a school in Gesher HaZiv, north of Nahariya.”

Israel’s Channel 13 reported the Israeli military’s assessment regarding Hezbollah’s military strength, claiming that the group currently possesses approximately 100 precision missiles, thousands of artillery shells, and hundreds of rockets. Additionally, it was highlighted that “there are around 200 Lebanese towns that remain unvisited.”

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News Network
November 7,2024

Udupi, Nov 7: In a tragic turn of events, a young woman, Prasanna, aged 29, allegedly died by suicide on Wednesday, struggling to cope with the demands of work and motherhood after the birth of her daughter, according to police reports.

Prasanna had married on December 2, 2022, and was the mother of a 10-month-old baby girl. Her husband works in Bengaluru, while she lived with her in-laws, who, according to her family, treated her kindly.

In a complaint, Prasanna's mother revealed that her daughter often called her, expressing deep concerns over her readiness for motherhood. Despite receiving supportive care from her family, Prasanna felt unprepared and overwhelmed by the balance of work and home life that early motherhood required.

Her family shared that she had been undergoing treatment, but between 10 a.m. and 1:45 p.m. on Wednesday, she allegedly took her own life at her husband’s residence. The Karkala Rural Police Station has registered a case and is conducting further investigations.

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News Network
November 10,2024

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The media office in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime has been waging a genocidal war since last October, says as many as 188 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the onset of the brutal military onslaught.

The office provided the figure on Saturday, naming four journalists as the most recent victims of the onslaught.

It identified the foursome as Zahraa Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Ahmad Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Mustafa Khadr Bahar, and Abdel Rahman Khadr Bahar.

The office said it “strongly condemns the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation and holds it fully responsible for committing this heinous crime.”

“We call on the international community, international organizations, and those involved in journalistic work worldwide to take action against the occupation, pursue it in international courts for its ongoing crimes, and pressure it to halt the genocide and the targeted killings of Palestinian journalists,” it said.

Earlier in the day, the office said the Israeli regime had bombed the tents sheltering journalists and displaced persons at the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza for the ninth consecutive time.

The atrocity that claimed the lives of two people and injured 26 others came as part of “the genocidal crimes committed by the Israeli occupation army against hospitals, civilians, and displaced persons,” it said.

The media office held the regime and the United States, its biggest ally, as well as other countries aiding the genocide fully responsible for such systematic crimes.

At least 43,552 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 102,765 others wounded since the launch of the war that followed a retaliatory operation by Gaza’s resistance groups.

The fatalities include 44 people, who were killed across the coastal sliver, in the most recent phase of the military onslaught.

As many as 24 of the victims were killed in the northern part of the territory, where the regime has markedly intensified its deadly attacks for weeks.

They included an eight-year-old child and a five-year-old one, who lost their lives after Israeli warplanes targeted a group of minors filling up jerry cans with water alongside their mother at the Jabalia Refugee camp.

Gaza’s heath ministry, meanwhile, said a number of victims remained under the rubble and in the streets following Israeli airstrikes, saying ambulances and civil defense teams could not reach them due to the sheer extent of the destruction caused by the raids and obstruction caused by the regime.

Also on Saturday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, a United Nations-backed assessment, warned that famine was looming in northern Gaza amid escalated Israeli aggression and the regime’s near-total siege of the targeted areas.

The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of "an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip."

On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing "catastrophic" food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.

The IPC report classified that figure as Phase 5 -- a situation when "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident."

The Israeli military, however, questioned the report's credibility.

"To date, all assessments by the IPC have proven incorrect and inconsistent with the situation on the ground," the army said in a statement, denouncing "partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests."

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