Kriti Agrawal –
Mehul Choksi, the fugitive diamantaire, bail has been denied by the Dominica High Court. Judge Wynante Adrien Roberts declared Choksi a ‘flight risk’ while issuing the injunction. Choksi is now being held at Roseau’s Dominica China Friendship Hospital.
Choksi’s lawyers told the Court that he is eligible for bail since he is a CARICOM (Caribbean Community) citizen and his offence is bailable with a EC$ 5,000 fine. They also asked the Court to issue monetary bail, claiming that their client is ill and so not a flight risk.
The state’s attorney, Lennox Lawrence, spoke out against Choksi’s bail. Choksi, according to Lawrence, is a flight risk and has an Interpol red notice against him.
Lawrence remarked that Choksi’s medical condition is not a concern because he received the necessary medical attention.
Choksi, inexplicably vanished on May 23 from Antigua and Barbuda, where he had been living as a citizen since 2018 after escaping India. He was jailed in Dominica, a neighbouring island country, for unlawful entry during a purported love adventure with his rumoured girlfriend.
Mehul’s lawyers, on the other hand, claimed that he was kidnapped from Jolly Harbour in Antigua by cops dressed in Antiguan and Indian garb and taken to Dominica on a boat.
On the orders of High Court Judge Bernie Stephenson, who was hearing the habeas corpus case, he was hauled before the Roseau magistrate to address allegations of the unauthorized entrance, to which he pled not guilty and was denied bail.
