The defence lawyer representing the Sikh activist arrested in Albufeira on terrorism charges says that extradition to India could lead to the death penalty for his client.
UK based Paramjeet Singh was arrested last Friday while enjoying a family holiday in the Algarve and now is in Beja jail pending an extradition request from the Indian authorities.
Portuguese lawyer, Manuel Luis Ferreira, is defending the Sikh activist who is accused by the Indian authorities of being responsible for bombing attacks and murder.
Paramjeet Singh appeared today before a judge in Évora and was remanded in custody due to the severity of the charges against him and an Interpol Red Notice tagged to his name.
Manuel Luis Ferreira also represented another Indian, Abu Salem, who was extradited to India in 2005 and this year was sentenced to life imprisonment. Ferreira was helped then by Gurpatwant Pannun from the ‘Sikhs for Justice’ organisation. Pannun arrived yesterday from New York.
Paramjeet Singh has been under UK protection since 1994, living in Birmingham where he works as a taxi driver.
Singh had booked into an Albuferia hotel with his wife and four children, who yesterday returned to England, and is accused of organising bombings and killings in India. The Sikh community says that this is political persecution by the Indian government.
The charges he faces, conspiracy to bomb and murder, may on conviction lead to a death penalty in India.
Manuel Luis Ferreira pointed out that Portugal does not extradite people to countries where the penalty to be applied is greater than the maximum sentence in Portugal, i.e. 25 years in prison.
Ferreira shot to fame while defending Jorge Santos, the American-born terrorist using the name George Wright, who still is wanted by the Americans to finish a sentence for a 40-year-old murder conviction. Wright has served 7 years and 6 months of a 30 year sentence before he had had enough and escaped in 1970, to be captured in Lisbon in 2011.
In this case, the Court of Appeal of Lisbon decided not to extradite Wright/Santos as he was a Portuguese citizen.
In the current case, Singh is described by the Indian authorities as a terrorist who is linked to a radical separatist movement in Punjab.
According to the Hindustan Times, Singh is accused of involvement in bombings in 2010 and was the organiser of the murder of a Hindu nationalist leader in 2009.
