Australia poses hurdle before NIA in probe against Areeb

Sources revealed that during exchanges between the two sides, Australia raised Section 34-C of the Extradition Act which states that in case “the laws of a foreign State do not provide for death penalty for an offence, a fugitive criminal shall be liable only for life imprisonment for that offence”.

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The NIA has been arguing that this is not a case of extradition, but merely a request for evidence from a foreign country in an ongoing investigation. It has also conveyed to representatives of the Australian prosecution service that it is in no position to extend such guarantees.

While the NIA filed a chargesheet against Majeed in May, it plans to file a supplementary chargesheet with technical evidence of his online activities to prove his links with the IS and his activities in Iraq and Syria. For this, it had sent Letters Rogatory (LRs) and requests under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty to 12 countries, including Australia, where the relevant servers of social networking sites or messaging services were located.

“While we already have sufficient evidence against Areeb Majeed and have filed a chargesheet against him, we want further technical evidence to buttress it. This will be put up in a supplementary chargesheet, as and when the evidence is made available to us. While we have received replies from some countries, in the case of Australia, we have been facing some legal wrangles,” a senior NIA officer told The Sunday Express.

“Authorities in Australia have demanded an assurance under Section 34-C of The Extradition Act that Majeed will not be given the death penalty… We have been arguing that this is not a case of extradition, but a request for evidence in an investigation. In any case, the NIA has no legal authority to give such assurances,” the officer added.

The United States, Canada, Luxembourg, Afghanistan and Turkey are some of the other countries to which requests under Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties have been sent for further evidence in the case.