AN studies on Tuesday whether to extradite to India a man who participated in the attempted assassination of religious leaders

The Prosecutor's Office is in favor of extradition but sets as a condition that he not be sentenced to the death penalty

MADRID, 5 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The National Court will hold this Tuesday the extradition hearing of a man of Indian nationality claimed by the Asian country for allegedly being part of a group that in 2015 tried to assassinate two religious leaders by planting a bomb at the music festival celebrations sacred 'Hari Vallabh Sammelan', which was to be celebrated in the city of Jalandhar, in the Indian state of Punjab.

The letter from the Public Prosecutor, to which Europa Press has had access, indicates that the handover of the Indian citizen Mehenga Singh, who was arrested in compliance with an international arrest warrant issued by the Indian judicial authorities in January 2022, is in order.

Mehenga Singh, who has not accepted the surrender to his country of origin, has remained on provisional release with the precautionary measure of appearing periodically before the court and the prohibition not to travel abroad.

According to the account of events contained in the prosecutor's report, Mehenga Singh was part of that group that intended to kill the current head of the Namdari religious community, Satguru Uday Singh, and the non-commissioned officer of religious leader Mata Chand Kaur, Sant Jagtar Singh, by a bomb explosion in December 2015.

Mehenga Singh and other investigators reportedly provided explosive material for the manufacture of three tiffin bombs to other members of the group. In fact, one of them exploded when it was being handled by one of the members, causing the death of one of them and the injury of another.

The facts are constitutive of crimes of criminal conspiracy to commit the crime of murder, culpable homicide, provocation of explosion, manufacture and maintenance of explosives with the intention of endangering life or property, commission of a terrorist act and preparation for commission of an act terrorist, as provided in the Indian Penal Code.

The prosecutor points out that these crimes correspond to the crimes of belonging to a criminal organization, conspiracy to commit the crime of murder, possession or deposit of explosive substances or devices and reckless homicide, all of them from the Spanish Penal Code.

Thus, the Prosecutor's Office highlights that double criminality is complied with --that the acts are also punishable in Spain--, and that the minimum punitive amount to comply with extradition is exceeded --which is set at one year--.

However, it is cautioned that since India contemplates penalties for conspiracy to commit the crime of murder ranging from life imprisonment to the death penalty, if extradition is granted it must be conditional on the South Asian country prior guarantee is given that the death penalty will not be applied to it. In the event of being sentenced to life imprisonment, they demand that it not be predetermined or entail an unconditional and invariable custodial sentence for life, and that it may be subject to review.