UK – The Guardian, May 25, 2026
Senior lawyers call on prime minister to request Indian prosecutors drop charges that would breach double jeopardy rule
Four senior lawyers, including the former attorney general Dominic Grieve, have written to Keir Starmer urging him to request that Indian prosecutors drop charges against the British national Jagtar Singh Johal on the basis that continued prosecution would be in manifest breach of the double jeopardy rule which prevents someone being tried twice for the same offence.
Johal has been held in an Indian jail for eight years, and in March last year was acquitted of the terrorist charges laid against him in a court in Punjab. The court found the prosecutors had “miserably failed” to present any reliable evidence, despite having had seven years to do so.
Despite his acquittal, Johal faces eight essentially duplicate cases filed by India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA), all based on the same “confession” printed on a sheet of paper that his supporters claim he signed after he was tortured by police with electricity and threatened with being burned alive.
The letter urging Starmer, as a former human rights lawyer, to recognise the legal justice in intervening has also been signed by the distinguished barrister Lady Helena Kennedy, the former Lord Advocate for Scotland, Dame Elish Angiolini, and Geoffrey Robertson KC. It is hoped that the calibre of the letter writers might galvanise Starmer to intervene.
In their letter, the four say it would be “entirely appropriate” for the UK government to ask the Indian government to drop the remaining case since domestic Indian proceedings would have acquitted Johal of all charges against him.
