A Brit from Dumbarton in Scotland is facing a possible death sentence after the UK intelligence services tipped off information about him to the Indian authorities, according to a high court complaint.
In a possible breach of the UK's commitment to human rights, MI5 and MI6 spies supplied information that led to the torture of Jagtar Singh Johal.
Mr Johal, 35, has been arbitrarily detained in India for five years since his unlawful arrest in Punjab where he was for his wedding.
His family say he was arrested and bundled into an unmarked car in 2017 and has since been subject to torture, including electric shocks.
He faces the death penalty after being charged with conspiracy to murder and membership in a terrorist group.
Mr Johal is a Sikh activist and blogger but Indian authorities suspect he is a member of the Khalistan Liberation Force, a banned terrorist organisation and accuse him of funding assassinations.
Lawyers at Reprieve representing Mr Johal have launched a legal claim in the UK against the Home Office, the Foreign Office and the Attorney-General saying that the British Government was implicated in supplying information to the Indian authorities.
They uncovered information in a case study referenced in the 2018 annual report of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office that led them to this conclusion.
It read: “In the course of an investigation, MI5 passed intelligence to a liaison partner via SIS [MI6]. The subject of the intelligence was arrested by the liaison partner in their country. The individual told the British Consular Official that he had been tortured.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the UK government’s approach to the detention was right and that ministers had unfailingly raised concerns about Johal’s treatment and right to a fair trial.
Some say the transfer of information would have only been possible with sign-off from the Foreign Secretary, who at the time of Mr Johal's arrest was Mr Johnson.
It took Mr Johnson five years to admit Mr Johal was being arbitrarily detained after being abducted on his honeymoon.
Gurpreet Singh Johal, Jagtar’s brother a solicitor and Labour councillor, said it felt like something out of a horror movie and is incredulous that his brother has been abducted by a foreign government and violently tortured.
He told the Mirror: "My children saw on the news that British intelligence might be linked to their uncle’s detention, and they asked me why that was - they thought the Government was supposed to be helping. I didn’t know what to tell them.
"Nearly five years after Jagtar’s detention even Boris Johnson accepts he’s arbitrarily detained on trumped-up charges. I hope after this week’s news the British Government will finally take responsibility for bringing my brother home.”
He said that his brother’s only “crime” was writing blogs exposing the Indian government’s “mistreatment” of Sikhs.
Mr Johal says there have been threats of execution, including a threat to burn him alive with police bringing petrol into his cell, and a threat he would be taken outside and shot.
Reprieve is calling on the current foreign secretary, Liz Truss, to intervene. It says that as potential future prime minister, Ms Truss has a "duty to right the wrongs of foreign secretaries before her and, in good faith, to bring Jagtar home and reunite him with his family; ban intelligence sharing where there is a real risk of torture or the death penalty; [and] give torture survivors a right to know if the UK was involved in their abuse.”
Jaspal Singh Manjhpur, Mr Johal’s lawyer in India, said: “Johal is being denied a fair trial and falsely implicated in different cases with the same charge of funding Sikh nationalism and hatching conspiracy of murder.”
David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, said Mr Johnson needs to "come clean" about whether he was responsible for authorising the sharing of intelligence on a British national when he was foreign secretary.
The Foreign Office said it would not comment on an ongoing legal case.
