New Delhi: When Nikhil Gupta arrived at Václav Havel Airport in Prague on a Friday in June, it is likely that he did not know that it would kickstart the process of removing the secretive shroud on an investigation that would encompass three countries and be pivotal in the United States’ most explosive charges yet against the Indian government.
It would only be around five months later that US federal prosecutors would release a detailed 15-page indictment that named an Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, as the prime accused for hiring a ‘hitman’. Even more startling, the indictment implicated an Indian government official in masterminding the unsuccessful plot to assassinate a Sikh separatist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, in New York. Pannun is a US citizen.
In a habeas corpus petition submitted to the Supreme Court this week, Nikhil Gupta’s family is urging the Indian government’s active involvement in securing his return. The petition, intriguingly titled ‘Mr X v/s the Union of India’, levels serious allegations against the US and Czech authorities regarding his treatment in detention but also reveals additional details about the investigation by US agencies that have so far not been in the public domain.
The Wire has sought a response from the Czech judicial authorities about the new allegations, but has received no response yet.
The writ petition has attached the US Southern District of New York grand jury’s sealed June 13 indictment of Nikhil Gupta. It also includes the extradition request presented by the US Department of Justice in August to the Czech government, which contains supporting affidavits from the Assistant US Attorney at Southern District of New York, Ashley C. Nicolas and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) special agent Mark J. Franks. These provide further insights into the case against Gupta by US law enforcement agencies, as outlined in the 15-page indictment made public last month.
However, since the writ petition in the Supreme Court does not disclose the name of the petitioner, but only refers to “Mr X”, Gupta’s name is also redacted in the annexures – except in two paragraphs.
Similar to the sealed charges filed on June 13, neither the formal extradition request nor the affidavits make any reference to the involvement of the Indian government agent. This information was only revealed in the most recent indictment.
‘Four jobs; innocent bystanders; CC-1’
However, all these documents highlight a crucial event where an undercover agent, assuming the role of a ‘hitman,’ allegedly received a $15,000 advance payment through a middleman. Gupta, introduced to the ‘hitman’ by an alleged criminal associate, remained unaware that this associate was, in reality, a DEA informant.
As per the affidavits submitted in August, a US federal grand jury issued a sealed indictment of Gupta just four days later after the money handover. On the same day, June 13, the Southern District of New York court clerk issued an arrest warrant in Gupta’s name.
On June 18, a Canadian national Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot and killed by masked gunmen. In the evening, CC-1 – an intelligence or security agency who remains unnamed – had shared a video of Nijjar’s body slumped in his vehicle with Gupta, which he forwarded to his criminal friend.
A day later, Gupta, as per the November indictment, told his friend that Nijjar had also been one of the targets. He also urged him to expedite the plan to assassinate the Sikh American lawyer, but to be cautious in light of the Canadian shooting.
On the same day, June 19, the Czech Justice Ministry issued a provisional arrest warrant in Gupta’s name. On that day, according to DEA Special Agent Mark Franks, Gupta allegedly told the DEA informant to go ahead with the plot, even if there were innocent bystanders around the ‘intended victim’. He also reportedly stressed on June 19 that the murder of Sikh American lawyer should be finished within 11 days and promised that it would be the first of “four job[s]”, as per the affidavit. The fact that Gupta became a person of interest for the Czechs on June 19 means that the US knew of his future travel plans by then.
‘Forced’
Assistant US Attorney Nicolas’s affidavit claimed that Czech authorities arrested Gupta on June 30 and seized three electronic devices and his luggage.
The writ petition before the Supreme Court has a different version, with Gupta’s lawyers alleging that US officials had physically accessed his phone during the time when he was bundled into a black SUV from the airport.
“The individuals took the petitioner’s mobile phones forcefully from the petitioner and attached a device to it as they continued to question the petitioner,” said the writ petition. They also apparently got him to unlock his iPhone with the Face ID feature.
During the interrogation, Gupta said that he was being mistaken for someone else, even as they “continued to threaten the petitioner and asking him to confess to allegations that the petitioner had himself heard for the first time”.
After three hours with American agents in the SUV which circled the city, Gupta’s petition claims he was then handed over to the local Czech authorities and detained at Pankrác Prison in Prague.
That same night, a defence lawyer appointed by the Czech authorities called up Gupta’s son to inform him about his father’s arrest.
As per the timeline provided in the writ petition, he was presented before a Prague court on July 1 and informed of the charges of ‘conspiracy to murder’ listed in the June 13 sealed indictment by the grand jury.
Gupta described himself as a 52-year-old “middle-class businessman” who runs a consultancy dealing with excavation and import-export out of Delhi. His family consists of his wife, two grown-up children and mother. The purpose of his travel to Prague via Turkey was for “tourism and for exploring new market for his business of handicraft”.
‘Discussions’
DEA special agent Mark Franks’ affidavit said that their confidential informant had developed a relationship with an Indian calling himself ‘Nick’ from 2016. He claimed that ‘Nick’ was identified as Nikhil Gupta on the basis of phone records and reports of other law enforcement agencies.
Over the next seven years, Gupta and the ‘Confidential Informant’ (referred to as CS in the indictment) discussed several narcotics and weapon trafficking deals, but nothing came to fruition, as per both the affidavits of the US officials.
According to Nicolas, while the Confidential Informant believed that Gupta was a drug and weapons trafficker, the latter thought that his old acquaintance was a Colombian cocaine supplier.
The DEA special agent claimed that in March of this year, Gupta and the ‘Colombian’ started to discuss a new firearms and confidential deal. Then around May 30, Gupta asked for his help in finding someone to murder a lawyer in New York.
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a still image ofthe Advance Payment as shown in the DoJ indictment of Nikhil Gupta, and Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Cash in hand
At around 2.30 pm, on June 9, a ‘money courier’ handed over $15,000 to the undercover agent, posing as a hitman. During that handover, Gupta called up the ‘hitman’ and asked to speak with the money courier, as per the charges.
Incidentally, the physical handover of money is key to the case. Special Agent Marks described Gupta’s identification as being linked to the phone number that was used to communicate with the person who arranged the $15,000 payment to the ‘hitman’.
Two photographs of Nikhil Gupta attached by the US authorities in their extradition request to the Czech government. The first is described as being taken by U.S. Customs and Border Protection on June 14, 2017, at Los Angeles International Airpor, and the second taken by U.S. Customs and Border Protection on December 12, 2016, at John F. Kennedy Airport. The Wire has blurred the images.*
He also identified Gupta based on two photographs taken at the border when the Indian travelled to US in 2016 and 2017. “I compared both photographs of — to recordings of video calls between the Confidential Informant and the Undercover Agent and the person who paid to have the Intended Victim murdered via the Phone Number, and determined that (Redacted)’s photographs match the person depicted in the video calls who paid to have the Intended Victim murdered,” the DEA special agent said.
‘Human rights violations’
The writ petition filed by Gupta’s family in the Indian Supreme Court did not deal with the specific details of the two indictments, as Gupta gave a blanket dismissal stating that that the allegations were made against a ‘Nick’, an alias which he has never used.
The submission to the Supreme Court was a long list of alleged violations of human rights that Gupta suffered in the last five months in Czech prisons in Prague and Brno.
For the first fortnight, he claimed to have been forced to eat non-vegetarian food in the prison, despite informing them of his religious dietary practices. He also claims that his defence counsel appointed by Czech authorities was telling him to waive off his right to fight the extradition, which was not in his client’s best interests.
He also claimed that Czech authorities used the excuse that he had contracted a communicable blood infection to put him in solitary confinement, as well as shift him to a distant prison, to stop his meeting with any Indian embassy official.
The only meeting that Nikhil Gupta had with an embassy official was on July 20. He also claimed that phone calls to his family in India were restricted, as part of pressure tactics used against him.
In addition to facing questioning upon exiting Prague airport on June 30, Gupta asserted that he underwent a formal interview with agents from the DEA, CIA, and a SDNY prosecutor on October 5, an event purportedly recorded on video.
Incidentally, The Wire had asked the Czech Justice Ministry last week whether the US had requested or been granted access to Gupta.
“In case, there is [a] pre-trial proceeding being conducted in a foreign state, the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office is competent to accept a request of the foreign authority for legal assistance; otherwise the Ministry of Justice is competent. The Ministry of Justice has not received any formal requests for legal assistance concerning the interrogation of Mr Gupta,” he replied.
Also Read: From Nijjar to Pannun, Modi Government’s Recklessness is Undermining National Interest
Inconsistency in passport number
Another inconsistency arises between the US documents and the applications filed by Gupta’s family concerning his passport number. The US agents have listed a passport for Gupta that was apparently issued in March this year. But, that is different from the number provided by Gupta’s son and daughter in their communication requesting help to the MEA.
On October 10, Gupta’s son wrote a long-detailed email to Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar that listed out the treatment of their father in Czech Republic.
A month later, the Municipal Court in Prague ruled that the extradition request was admissible.
The writ petition on behalf of Gupta claimed that that an appeal was not filed before the Higher Court as a “typed copy of the order has not been made available to the Petitioner or his Attorney at Prague”.
However, the Czech Justice ministry had told The Wire last week that there was a delay in enforcing the court’s ruling on extradition as the petitioner, that is Gupta, had filed a complaint. “Mr Gupta lodged a complaint (i.e. an ordinary remedy) against the decision of the municipal court in Prague on the admissibility of extradition,” said the Justice ministry spokesperson Vladimir Řepka.
As mentioned above, there has been no official clarification from Prague on the new allegations made by Gupta and his family before the Supreme Court.
*Note: Though the photograph of Nikhil Gupta forms part of the petition filed by Nikhil Gupta and his family in the case and is now in the public domain, The Wire has decided to blur his features as they have expressed fears about his security in the same petition.
