Polish fugitive denied bail

"The offence is grave in nature and is extraditable... The fugitive criminal is not entitled to any leniency of bail and his bail application is dismissed," Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Amit Bansal said.

The court allowed the plea of Naveen Kumar Matta, counsel for the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), that the bail plea of a fugitive criminal can be entertained only after the conclusion of extradition proceedings.

The counsel for the accused, Adam Piotr Mancie, however, claimed that deceased Friedhelm Sodenkamp was himself a person of a "doubtful character" and it was "plausible" that some other person might have killed him.

The court has now fixed the matter for recording additional evidence to be produced by the MEA, which is pursuing the extradition inquiry at the request of Germany.
Earlier, the court dismissed the plea of Mancie that he be supplied more documents by German authorities to prove his innocence in the case.

Mancie, 43, is accused of gunning down Sodenkamp on November 3, 2008, at Berlin Mitte city centre.
The Polish, who was given 25,000 euros by a co-accused for committing the offence, killed the victim when he was taking his dog out for a walk, the arrest warrant of a German court said.

Mancie is in judicial custody in India following his detention at Goa.
The MEA, in its extradition plea, had annexed the arrest warrant issued on December 10, 2008, by Ziegler, a local court judge of Tiergarten in Berlin.

It was said that the offence was covered under section 211 (murder) of the German Criminal Code.