Briton Jagtar Singh Johal acquitted in first India terror trial

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A British man who has spent seven years in jail in India on terror charges that could carry the death penalty has been acquitted in one of the nine cases against him.

Jagtar Singh Johal, a 37-year-old Dumbarton-based campaigner for Sikh rights, was detained in India’s Punjab state in 2017 over accusations of involvement with the banned Sikh separatist Khalistani Liberation Force.

Mr Johal has denied any wrongdoing, and a UN panel ruled that he had been “arbitrarily detained” in May 2022. His family claim Mr Johal has been subjected to torture, including the administering of electric shocks, during his time in prison.

A district court in Moga, Punjab, on Tuesday acquitted him after prosecutors failed to produce credible evidence linking him to a terrorist organisation.

This is the first time any of the allegations against Mr Johal have been brought to trial. In this case, he was accused of travelling to Paris in 2013 to hand over £3,000 to a co-conspirator, with prosecutors alleging that the money was to be used for funding attacks against Hindu nationalists.

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“Jagtar has been acquitted of all charges in this case. This case was brought in to cover up the police and narco mafia in the state,” Johal’s lawyer Jaspal Singh Manjhpur told The Independent from the court.

“Just the way Jagar was acquitted in this case due to lack of evidence, we are hopeful that he would be similarly acquitted in the remaining eight cases.”

Mr Johal’s family and supporters say the other eight cases are linked to this first, and have applied for them to be dropped in the wake of Tuesday’s verdict.

Mr Johal appeared before the court via video call from a jail in central Delhi, and his lawyer said he looked frail. “His health is alright but he is under tremendous mental harassment,” Mr Manjhpur said.

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Gurpreet Singh Johal, Mr Johal’s brother, has called on Sir Keir Starmer’s administration to press the Indian government for his release.

“We’ve always said the allegations against Jagtar are baseless, and now the court in Punjab has agreed, the whole case against him has been exposed as a fabrication,” Gurpreet Singh Johal said in a statement.

“Jagtar has not been able to hug his wife for seven years. All this time, he’s been locked up in an Indian jail for something he didn’t do. I will only believe this nightmare is over when he’s here with us at home, but today feels like a significant moment,” he said.

Mr Johal was initially arrested in connection with an arms recovery case but later named in seven targeted attack cases, five of them murder charges related to the separatist movement. He has reportedly been held in solitary confinement since 2019.