Jagtar Singh Johal freed on bail after nine years in Indian prison
The Sikh activist from Dumbarton was arrested in 2017 in connection with alleged terror offences.
Jagtar Singh Johal freed on bail after nine years in Indian prison
A Scottish Sikh activist has been released from prison in India after spending almost nine years in detention without ever being convicted.
Jagtar Singh Johal, who is from Dumbarton, was arrested in 2017 over alleged terror offences.
Indian authorities say the 39-year-old played a part in a series of targeted killings of religious and political figures, accusations he denies.
Johal was granted bail by the Delhi High Court on 18 September, but his release from custody has only now taken place.
As part of his bail terms, he had to hand over his passport and is not allowed to speak to the media about the case.
He was arrested in Punjab in 2017, only weeks after getting married there.
He is accused of travelling to Paris in 2013 and giving around £3,000 to the Khalistan Liberation Force, an armed group that has carried out violent attacks in its campaign for a separate Sikh state.
That money is alleged to have been used to buy weapons to kill, or try to kill, religious and political figures in Punjab in 2016 and 2017.
Indian authorities say Johal is a member of the KLF and that "he actively participated and had complete knowledge of the conspiracy".
His supporters, however, say he was targeted because he blogged about alleged human rights abuses against the Sikh community in India and was forced into signing a false confession admitting involvement in the killings.
Johal's family says no solid evidence has been produced against him and that the case relied on the evidence of unreliable witnesses.
In 2022, a UN panel found his imprisonment amounted to arbitrary detention, and Johal has said he was tortured.
Indian authorities have previously rejected the torture allegation and have consistently said due process is being followed.
Campaigners say there is no credible evidence against Jagtar Singh Johal
Johal was acquitted last year in a case accusing him of financially backing the KLF terror group.
He stayed in prison because he still faces federal charges in eight other cases, which could carry the death penalty.
His legal team says those cases are nearly identical and that the remaining charges should be thrown out.
There have been hundreds of hearings over the past nine years, and the bail ruling says the trial is "certainly not likely to conclude anytime soon".
His brother Gurpreet Singh Johal, who has lobbied successive governments for his release, said the bail decision was a "really important milestone".
"It is just a first step, but it is a step in the right direction," he said.
Politicians and the legal charities Redress and Reprieve, which represent Johal in the UK, also welcomed the development.
Reprieve's deputy executive director Dan Dolan said the release was "a really important moment" - but that Johal still faced the death penalty on "trumped up charges".
"It is really important that we recognise he's not out of the woods yet," he said.
"We now really need to push to get him home."
Redress said Johal's release from prison could not erase "the intolerable suffering caused by nine years of arbitrary detention".