CBI bends to extradite Kim Davy

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is willing to make compromises when it comes to extraditing people wanted for crimes in India.

It brought gangster Abu Salem from Portugal in November 2005 after agreeing to that country’s demand that the gangster won't be given the death sentence. The agency now seems to be making a deal to get Kim Peter Davy, the main accused in the Purulia arms drop case.

Niels Christian Nielsen, or Kim Davy, is on Interpol's most wanted list but roams freely in Denmark and does business from Copenhagen. The Indian government has doubled efforts to extradite him and CNN-IBN has learnt that the Union Cabinet last month approved a list of conditions imposed by Denmark to extradite the 44-year-old businessman.

The three conditions are: Denmark wants no death penalty; if Kim Davy is found guilty he will be sent back to Denmark to serve prison term and he will be tried in a regular court and not by a special tribunal.

Accepting these conditions would be a huge compromise but authorities feel it is worth it. Davy played an important role in dropping sophisticated arms and ammunition in West Bengal's Purulia district. As many as 300 Bulgarian-made AK-47 assault rifles, 10 rocket launchers, and 100 anti-tank grenades were airdropped by an AN-26 aircraft over villages in Purulia on the night of December 17, 1995.

Davy was arrested but he escaped from the Mumbai airport five days later. The CBI sent a request to extradite Kim Davy to Denmark in 2002 and Danish authorities laid down their terms for his extradition in 2005.

Sources in the Home Ministry told CNN-IBN that it took CBI officers nearly a year to convince the Indian government to let Davy serve his prison sentence in Denmark.

The Union Cabinet approved the CBI’s request though the Law Ministry was against it. And the Cabinet did so with the full knowledge that it might open up a Pandora's box. A number of absconding criminals who have settled down in countries abroad can now be handed over with the condition that the jail term would be served elsewhere.

ARMS FROM THE SKY
An aircraft flew over Purulia in West Bengal on the night of December 17, 1995 and dropped arms near the headquarters of Anand Margis, a religious sect.
The CBI’s allegation that the arms were meant for the Anand Margis was never proved.
Five Latvian citizens and Peter Bleach, a Briton, were sentenced to life imprisonment in the case. The Latvian crew were pardoned and released in 2000. Bleach was released on February 2004 after a presidential pardon.
Kim Davy is allegedly the main conspirator in the arms drop.