After almost five years, the Attorney General should now make a decision in the case of the Dane Niels Holck, who for a number of years has been the center of a diplomatic dispute between India and Denmark.
This is what a letter from Niels Holck’s lawyer, Jonas Christoffersen, reads, which lands at the Court in Hillerød on Monday. It writes Politiken.
India most recently requested extradition in 2016, and Attorney General Jan Reckendorff has been chewing on it ever since.
Jonas Christoffersen does not believe that Jan Reckendorff is objective in his assessment of whether Niels Holck should be extradited to India.
– If he could have said yes, he would have done it a long time ago. They are trying to find out if you can get conditions in India that allow you to extradite.
– Otherwise you could have just said no, as the basis for extradition is clearly still not present. It looks as if you want to hand it over, otherwise it is difficult to see it, says Jonas Christoffersen to Politiken.
He will ask the court for a time limit of three months to reach a decision in the case.
Jan Reckendorff will not respond to the accusation because the case is being processed, he informs Politiken.
India wants to prosecute Niels Holck because in 1995 he was in charge of throwing four tons of weapons from a plane over the Indian state of West Bengal.
The weapons were to go to the Ananda Marga movement in their fight against the state forces.
The action was discovered, but Niels Holck managed to escape to Denmark. India has been trying to get him extradited since 2002.
In 2009, the then Minister of Justice Lars Barfoed (K) said yes, but the courts said no on two occasions.
They did not feel convinced that Niels Holck could be secured against torture.
For a number of years, relations between Denmark and India have been cold due to the case, but in recent years things have softened.
Politiken revealed in February 2019 that an actual negotiation process between Indian authorities and the Attorney General took off in 2018.
In early October, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (S) was on a state visit to India, where she met Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Source: The Nordic Page