FORMER arms dealer Peter Bleach has been summonsed to the High Court in Copenhagen this week to give evidence at an extradition hearing.

The North Yorkshire man, who spent eight years in an Indian prison after being convicted of taking part in an illegal weapons drop in India, said he intended to speak out against efforts to extradite the alleged ringleader of the plot.

Mr Bleach, said Danish man Kim Davy was entitled to a fair trial and, based on his own experiences, he did not believe Davy could get one in India. “I also believe that if he was sent to India, he would be killed before he could ever reach a court of law,” he told The Press.

The former St Peter’s School pupil, who now lives in the Scarborough area, has long sought to prove he acted in good faith in the mission to drop assault rifles, rocket launchers and anti-tank grenades over villages in West Bengal’s Purulia district in 1995.

He has always claimed 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, and insisted he fully expected the Indian authorities to mount a sting operation to catch the perpetrators.

He said he expected to give evidence next week on two things: firstly the conditions in Indian jails, and secondly, whether or not Davy could get a fair trial. Mr Bleach was eventually released from prison following the intervention of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, but conditions there were so bad that he suffered from tuberculosis which permanently damaged his lungs.

He said: “During my own trial, no less than six senior police officers were indicted for perjury – anywhere in the world that would immediately bring any trial to a halt. Not in our case!”

Mr Bleach, who would like Davy to be tried instead in Denmark, said he would fear for his life in India because there were powerful people there who had a vested interest in ensuring he never told what he knew to a judge.