Lalit Modi: VANATU PM cancels the passport of former IPL cricket head

India made several unsuccessful attempts to extradite him.

On Friday, India Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal told reporters that Mr. Modi has asked to surrender his Indian passport to London.

“We are also offered to understand that it has acquired Vanatu’s citizenship. We continue to follow the case against him, as needed in accordance with the law,” Jaiswal said.

The news of Mr. Modi becoming a citizen Vanatu made titles in India, where he was once the face of the IPL full of charm, rich in cash. He was an ordinary presence on the social scene, rubbing the shoulders with Bollywood stars and the elite of India.

But Monday, Prime Minister Vanatu, Jotham Napat, announced that his country had decided to cancel Mr. Modi’s citizenship.

Napat said that a VANATU passport is a “privilege” and that “applicants must seek citizenship for legitimate reasons.”

“None of these legitimate reasons include the attempt to avoid extradition, which the recent facts have clearly brought to light was Mr. Modi’s intention,” said a press version, quoted.

He said that the substantive checks and interpol projections carried out during Mr. Modi’s request for a passport did not show criminal convictions.

But he added, that, in the last 24 hours, he was aware that Interpol twice rejected India’s requests to issue an alert notification of Mr. Modi, citing a lack of “substantial judicial evidence”.

“Any such alert would have triggered an automatic rejection of the request for citizenship of Mr. Modi,” the statement added.

This movement is likely to bring relief to Indian authorities. Unlike the UK, Vanatu – an island nation in the Pacific Ocean – does not have an extradition treaty with India.

Extradition treaties allow the repatriation of persons accused of crimes between countries.

A day earlier, Mr. Modi wrote in a post, external On X (former Twitter) that there were no pending cases against him in any court in India and accused the media of pedesting “false news” about him.

Mr. Modi has contributed to the founding of IPL in 2008, which has now become an industry of several billions of dollars.

The main accusations against Mr. Modi refer to the equipment offers during the auction of two team franchises in 2010. He was also accused of selling rights and internet without authorization.

In 2013, the Cricket Control Council in India (BCCI) forbade Mr. Modi from any involvement in life cricket activities.

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