Extradition of brother and sister to India to face murder charges halted

The extradition of a brother and a sister who live in Vancouver, British Columbia, to India to face murder charges was challenged in court because the federal justice minister’s decision to surrender the pair failed to consider new information, according to a defence lawyer.

According to Calgary Herald news paper, the lawyer Michael Klein said Surjit Singh Badesha and Malkit Kaur Sidhu were being escorted to India via Toronto on Thursday when the B.C. Court of Appeal decided to halt their extradition.

Klein said he believes the pair returned to Vancouver. His client Badesha, along with Sidhu, his sister, are accused of conspiracy in the murder of Sidhu’s daughter in June 2000.

An expedited hearing Thursday was sought after Klein and lawyer David Crossin, who represents Sidhu, learned “through happenstance” that Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould had surrendered the pair to Indian authorities, Klein said.

“I presume Mr. Crossin was making submissions in the court of appeal on behalf of both of them while they were in the air (enroute to Toronto),” he said.

Earlier, a Canadian government lawyer has argued that Canada could undermine the global justice system by failing to extradite the accused pair to India. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the siblings who were accused of masterminding the murder a 25-year-old woman should be extradited to India.

Surjit Singh Badesha and Malkit Kaur Sidhu — The sensational murder case was the subject of a book published in Indi

India had requested the extradition of Malkit and Surjit, the mother and uncle of Jaswinder (Jassi) Sidhu who was killed in 2000, to face a trial on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder.
Jaswinder’s body was dumped near a canal with her throat slashed, allegedly targeted for secretly marrying a poor rickshaw driver, considered to be a man of much lower social status, instead, they have found an older man for her to marry in Canada. Her Indian husband was badly beaten and left for dead, but he survived. The young couple was riding a scooter in Punjab when they were attacked by a group of armed men and Jaswinder’s body was later found in a canal.

The Indian government has ruled that she was the victim of an “honour killing” arranged by her mother and uncle, wealthy blueberry farmers in Maple Ridge, Canada. In a unanimous decision, the high court found that a surrender order by then Justice Minister Peter MacKay was justified.

A surrender order signed by MacKay was challenged and ultimately struck down by British Columbia’s Court of Appeal last year. Sidhu and Badesha had argued they could face neglect or mistreatment in India’s prison system, and said there was no guarantee India would uphold its assurance it would not administer the death penalty.

India has provided assurances the pair would have access to medical treatment and would not be mistreated.

But lawyers for the accused argued that those assurances were not enough to protect the pair, and that sending them to India would violate their constitutional rights.

According to the judgment, 13 people, including Badesha and Sidhu, were charged in India in connection with the killing and attack. Eleven of those were tried in India. Seven were convicted and four were acquitted of offences, and four of them were later acquitted on appeal.