Hearing delayed
An extradition hearing for two accused in a high-profile honour-killing case has been adjourned until May.
The hearing for Malkit Kaur Sidhu and Surjit Singh Badesha, who are being sought for extradition to India in the slaying of Sidhu’s daughter Jaswinder “Jassi” Sidhu, had been set to begin Oct. 26. But Sidhu fired her lawyer in September and, on Tuesday, the parties made a brief appearance in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver and set a new date for the weeklong hearing.
Deborah Strachan, a Canadian government lawyer acting on behalf of the requesting state, told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Gregory Fitch that the earliest date available was May 27. Pressed by the judge, she said the schedules of defence counsel did not permit an earlier date. The court also set a two-day hearing to begin on May 6 to deal with the admissibility of statements made by Jassi Singh to her co-workers in Maple Ridge.
Sidhu and Badesha, Jassi Singh’s uncle, are accused of conspiring to murder the 25-year-old woman following her secret marriage to Mithu Singh Sidhu, an India rickshaw driver. The couple was married in March 1999 and Jassi returned to Canada in May 1999, with the marriage being discovered only at the end of the year.
On June 8, 2000, Jassi and Mithu were attacked in India by a group of men, with Mithu being badly beaten and Jassi abducted. Her body was found the next day, her throat slit.
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