US charges Indian for fiancee's murder

United States authorities have filed a murder charge against an Indian businessman, Pragnesh Desai, for the death of his American fiancée Leona Swiderski and are seeking his extradition from India.

 

Desai, who resided in New Jersey, USA, is charged with arranging to get Swiderski, an aspiring model, killed during a trip to Mumbai to collect insurance worth $1 million.

 

The murder charge against Desai, owner of several Manhattan restaurants and stores in New Jersey, come nine months after an Indian trial judge acquitted him in the murder of Swiderski in February 2003.

 

However,

he remains in jail in Mumbai as US authorities were seeking his extradition on mail fraud charges. But on June 3, the authorities filed a murder charge against him, saying they had uncovered new evidence during the visit of FBI agents to India.

 

The charge announced Thursday accuses Desai of intentionally causing his fiancée to travel in foreign commerce with the purpose of causing her death. Desai could be tried for murder, as Swiderski is an American citizen. He is alleged to have taken out two life insurance policies worth one million dollars on his fiancée, making himself beneficiary shortly before they went on a trip to India last year. Desai also faces US fraud charges in connection with those policies.

 

FBI spokesman Steven Kodak declined to elaborate as the new evidence.