The Delhi High Court on Friday stayed a lower Indian court order to extradite a Bangladeshi national to the USA where he is wanted in a 24-year-old murder case.
In 1989, a USA court framed charges against Mehfuz Huq for killing a 19-year-old boy, Todd Kelly, in Indianapolis, on August 9 of that year.
After murdering Kelly for his alleged intimacy with his girlfriend, Mehfuz had fled to Dhaka, read the Indian prosecution documents adding that then he started working as teacher at a Dhaka school run by the US embassy.
Mehfuz was arrested at Indira Gandhi International Airport on February 10, 2011 following an Interpol Red Corner Notice.
On January 9, 2013, the Indian court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) ordered to extradite Mehfuz to the US to stand the murder trial. Following the order, the authorities of Delhi's Tihar jail was about to hand him over to the US marshals on Friday.
Challenging the extradition order, Mehfuz's lawyers contended that ACMM's order was based on those documents which were not enough to extradite him.
On Monday, in an interim order, Justice GP Mittal of the High Court said Mehfuz should not be sent outside India until the next hearing.
The High Court also asked Indian Home Ministry, External Affairs Ministry and Tihar Jail authorities to send their replies by March 18.