FORMER arms dealer Peter Bleach – who spent eight years in an Indian prison after being convicted of an illegal arms drop – has won a major boost in his lengthy battle to clear his name.

Dane Kim Davy, the alleged ringleader of the plot to drop assault rifles, rocket launchers and anti-tank grenades over villages in West Bengal’s Purulia district in 1995, has been arrested in Denmark and finally looks set to be extradited to India to stand trial.

Mr Bleach, a former pupil of St Peter’s School in York and who lives near Pickering, said today he hoped a trial would finally allow evidence to emerge which would prove his innocence.

But he said he wanted Davy to be tried in a Danish court rather than extradited for trial to India, as he feared he would not survive in an Indian jail.

Reports in the Danish and Indian media have suggested that while the Indian government has agreed Davy will not be executed, the Indian and Danish governments are in dispute over where he should serve any sentence. Davy is reported to have lodged an appeal in the Danish courts against extradition.

Mr Bleach was captured and jailed for life for “waging war” against India after the arms drop but Davy disappeared and went on the run.

Mr Bleach has always claimed that he tipped off North Yorkshire Police about the arms drop in advance, speaking three times to officers in the autumn of 1995, and was told to proceed with it.

He insists he fully expected the Indian authorities to mount a sting operation to catch the perpetrators. “All I am wanting is a public acknowledgement that I acted throughout the whole affair in good faith.”

While in jail, he suffered from tuberculosis which permanently damaged his lungs.

He was freed in February, 2004 following the intervention of former Home Secretary Jack Straw and the then Prime Minister Tony Blair.