New Delhi: The five-day extradition trial of fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi will begin on Monday (May 11).

The extradition trial will be set in a part-remote setting amidst the restrictions and social distancing measures put in place to contain the COVID-19.

Modi is fighting his extradition to India over the nearly USD 2 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud and money laundering case. He was arrested in March 2019 and has been lodged at Wandsworth jail since then. He applied for bail five times but all please were rejected.

The hearing relates to the Indian government’s extradition request certified by the UK government last year.

The case, filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED), relates to a large-scale fraud upon an Indian Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) through the fraudulent obtaining of letters of understanding (LoUs) and the laundering of the proceeds of that fraud.