India "Hugely Angry": UK MP Who Signed Nirav Modi's Extradition Order

Britain's former Home Secretary Priti Patel has said she was "appalled and horrified" that fugitive Nirav Modi was still in the United Kingdom, even though she signed his extradition order to India in 2021 after a court established a prima facie case. The conservative MP, speaking on a 'The Daily Telegraph' podcast about the fugitive diamantaire, claimed that New Delhi has refused to take back thousands of illegal Indian migrants from the UK because London has not extradited Modi, who is wanted in India to stand trial on fraud and money laundering charges in an estimated $2 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) loan scam case.

The Indian-origin Tory MP, now the shadow foreign secretary for the Conservative Party, went on to claim that authorities in India are "hugely angry" over the British government's failure to extradite the jeweller wanted for one of the country's biggest banking frauds.

"If our system were judicious and doing the right thing, rather than tying itself up in process and excuses, he should not be in this country," Patel was quoted as saying.

"I'm actually pretty appalled and horrified that he's still here, and I have to say, I suspect that really makes the Indian government feel quite demoralised about even working with us," she added.

Patel said that as home secretary, during the Tory-led government between 2019 and 2022, the case complicated matters for her as India "would really push back" on taking visa overstayers.

"I had a hell of a challenge getting them [India] to sign off on receiving failed asylum seekers... and I'm convinced it's because we had this high-profile case [of Nirav Modi] and we had another high-profile case at the time and until they [India] saw action and movement on those, guess what, they had some leverage over us, which was terribly frustrating," she said.

Patel was speaking at the 'The Diamond King' podcast series, which traces The Daily Telegraph's discovery of the fugitive diamond merchant hiding out in a luxury London flat, leading to his eventual arrest by Scotland Yard in March 2019.

Nirav Modi is wanted in connection with three sets of criminal proceedings in India-- the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case of PNB fraud, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) case relating to the alleged money laundering of the proceeds of that fraud, and a third set of criminal proceedings involving alleged interference with evidence and witnesses in the CBI proceedings.

The 55-year-old jeweller remains in a London prison in connection with the PNB fraud and money laundering cases. He exhausted his legal options in the UK and reportedly has also lost a last-ditch plea at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in France, with his extradition seen as imminent.

"[Nirav] Modi should be in prison...in India and serving his time there, having gone through a legal process, which is exactly what UK extradition laws and treaties are about," Patel told the newspaper.

"It's a flagrant abuse of our system. I mean, that's the only way to describe this. It really is. And you know, it's an insult to British taxpayers as well," she said.

The delays to Nirav Modi's extradition involved several High Court appeals on human rights grounds as well as a parallel, confidential political asylum claim. It was after the reported denial of asylum that the jeweller, lodged at Pentonville prison in north London, attempted to reopen his extradition case, which was also turned down by the High Court in England in March this year.