Have independent judicial system to decide extradition of Nikhil Gupta accused: Czech foreign minister

Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky, who is currently in India, on Friday said that his country has an independent judicial system that will decide on the case of the Indian accused in the alleged assassination attempt to kill Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

“We have an independent judicial system that will decide on the case,” he told ANI.

Notably, a Czech court has ruled that Prague can extradite to the United States, the 52-year-old Indian man, Nikhil Gupta, who is accused by the US of involvement in the alleged attempt to kill Pannun, a Czech-based media outlet Seznam Zpravy reported, citing judicial database Infosoud.

However, the extradition of Gupta still requires the approval of Czech justice minister Pavel Blazek, the publication reported.

Gupta was detained in Prague in June last year based on a bilateral US-Czech extradition treaty. According to the Czech news website, Gupta is now in Prague’s Pankrac prison.

Pannun is an India-designated terrorist who holds American and Canadian citizenship. As per the US Justice Department indictment, Gupta has been charged with murder-for-hire, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Czech authorities arrested and detained Gupta on June 30.

The US justice department had claimed that an Indian government employee, who was not identified in the indictment filed in a federal court in Manhattan, had recruited Gupta to hire a hitman to allegedly assassinate Pannun, which was foiled by US authorities.

The US justice department claimed that Gupta is an associate of CC-1 (an unidentified person who directed the alleged plot), and has described his involvement in international narcotics and weapons trafficking in his communications with CC-1.

The indictment claims CC -1 directed the assassination plot from India.