Purulia case: Denmark denies entry to CBI team

In a setback to the Central Bureau of Investigation's probe into the 1995 Purulia arms drop case, the Danish government has rejected the agency's request to send its legal team there to oppose Kim Davy's recent petition challenging his extradition.

In a setback to the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) probe into the 1995 Purulia arms drop case, the Danish government has rejected the agency's request to send its legal team there to oppose Kim Davy's recent petition challenging his extradition.

HT Image

"Denmark has turned down our request to send our team of lawyers there to oppose Davy's recent petition challenging his extradition to India," CBI Director Ashwani Kumar said.

"Davy in his petition has said he does not want to get extradited to India," said Kumar. "

Denmark's government informed us that as per their law, they cannot let the CBI become a party in Davy's extradition trial proceedings."

Now, the state prosecutors of Denmark would argue on behalf of both their government and the CBI. "We have, therefore, requested them that we will give our support and inputs to their legal team in the trial to oppose Davy's plea," Kumar said.

Though the CBI had wanted to send its team of lawyers and investigators to Denmark to help in the current stage of the trial, it was asked to wait.

"Denmark's government told us that our help is not required by their legal team in the extradition trial's first hearing, which is happening now."

On December 17, 1995, Davy and a few others onboard a private aircraft had dropped a huge cache of arms and ammunition in Purulia, West Bengal. The case left unanswered questions like for whom it was destined.

As reported by HT on December 29 last year, Davy had purchased this arsenal from the Bulgarian KAS Engineering Consortium Ltd. The arsenal was bought on the basis of two end-user certificates signed by Bangladeshi parliamentarian and retired major general Mohammed Shubid Ali Bhuiyan, the then principal staff officer to Bangladeshi Prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia.