Gaston Browne, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, has made sensational claims over the mysterious disappearance of fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi from the Caribbean nation.
Mehul Choksi was apprehended and arrested by the Dominican Police on May 26.
During an interview, Browne said, “Mehul Choksi made a mistake and the information we are getting is that Choksi travelled with his girlfriend but he was caught in Dominica and now he can be deported back to India.”
Choksi claims that he was abducted from Jolly Harbour in Antigua and Barbuda on May 23 by policemen looking like Antiguan and Indian and taken to Dominica and tortured.
He was then beaten up, tortured and taken to Dominica in a vessel where he was arrested, claim Mehul Choksi’s lawyers.
Pictures of Choksi have also surfaced in Dominica that show him with a red swollen eye and bruises on his hands.
However, Antigua and Barbuda’s police chief has denied the allegations of abduction and torture of Choksi.
Mehul Choksi and his nephew Nirav Modi are wanted for allegedly siphoning Rs 13,500 crore of public money from the state-run Punjab National Bank (PNB) using letters of undertaking.
While Nirav Modi is in a London prison after being denied bail repeatedly and is contesting his extradition to India, Choksi took citizenship of Antigua and Barbuda in 2017 using the Citizenship by Investment programme before fleeing India in January 2018.
Meanwhile, Antigua and Barbuda PM Gaston Browne has said that Indian officials have landed in Dominica to secure custody of Mehul Choksi. Documents are being presented to the Dominican authorities to convince them that Choksi is a fugitive and should be deported directly to India.
Browne has also communicated to the Dominican Government that Choksi should be sent to India and not returned to Antigua.
The matter of the alleged kidnapping, torture and illegal arrest of Mehul Choksi is pending before the Dominican High Court.
The Dominica High Court has stayed the removal of Choksi from its soil and placed a gag order on the developments until the matter is heard in an open court on June 2.
(With Inputs From India Today)
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