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full screen Danish Niels Holck will not be extradited to India, this time either, according to a Danish court. File photo from the previous trial, 2011. Photo: Ilan Brander/AP/TT
A Danish man who helped drop tons of illegal weapons from a plane over West Bengal nearly 30 years ago will not be extradited to India to face trial, a Danish court has ruled.
Niels Holck, now 62 years old, was part of a group that flew an old Soviet transport plane over West Bengal in December 1995 and parachuted up to five tons of weapons and ammunition to arm a group that was in conflict with the state’s then communist rule .
The company was then forced down to India and Holck’s companions – five Latvians and one Briton – were sentenced to life imprisonment in India. The Dane somehow escaped and was able to return to Denmark, where he became the subject of an international arrest warrant.
India first tried to have Niels Holck extradited in a diplomatically highly sensitive process where the Ministry of Justice in Copenhagen said yes, but the Danish judiciary said no. In 2010 and 2011, the extradition was stopped in two judicial instances citing a risk of torture or degrading treatment in India.
India’s new trial began in 2016 and the country has offered Denmark several guarantees, including that Holck will be kept in a special detention center and can be accompanied by Danish police officers. But the court in Hillerød says no, as it did last time. It assesses that the risks remain, citing, among other things, that India has not ratified the UN Torture Convention.
This time, however, the judgment can also be appealed to the corresponding court of appeal.