Purulia arms case: Danish court rejects India’s plea for extradition of accused
The court said there was a risk that Niels Holck would be subjected to treatment that violated the European Convention on Human Rights if he were sent to India
A court in Denmark on Thursday (August 29) rejected India’s request for the extradition of a Danish citizen accused in the 1995 Purulia arms smuggling case.
India has been seeking the extradition of accused Niels Holck for the past 22 years to face trial for the crime of smuggling four tonnes of weapons to an insurgent movement in West Bengal.
The court, rejecting India’s request, said there was a risk that Holck would be subjected to treatment that violated the European Convention on Human Rights if he were sent to India. This was despite assurances from India that Holck would be kept in a special detention centre during the criminal proceedings and that Danish police officers could potentially be present as observers.
Holck had earlier made a confession to a Danish court that he was part of a gang of seven persons that illegally dropped weapons from a Russian cargo plane in the Purulia district of West Bengal on December 17, 1995.
The Russian plane was then intercepted by an Indian Air Force aircraft, and 5 Latvian citizens and a British citizen were arrested. The six of them were sentenced to life imprisonment in 2000, but were eventually released.
But the organiser 'Kim Davy' alias Niels Holck managed to escape.
Holck was later arrested in Denmark in 2010 after an agreement between the two nations over the terms of his extradition. However, a Danish court in 2011 ruled against his extradition, saying he faced the risk of torture or other inhumane treatment in India. An appeals court later upheld the trial court’s ruling.
In June 2023, Denmark revisited a 2016 Indian extradition request, stating that the requirements in the extradition act had been met. The court, however, has again ruled against Holck’s extradition.