Fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi’s ‘friend’ Barbara junks abduction claim, denies role in capture
Barbara Jarabica appeared on an Indian TV channel on Tuesday and debunked the “wanted” diamond trader’s claim that he was abducted from Antigua and Barbuda and taken to Dominica.
FollowBarbara Jarabica, whose name has cropped up in fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi’s alleged abduction case, has rubbished the charges of being involved in his kidnapping, while also clarifying that she is just a “friend" of the businessman, who had introduced himself to her as Raj.
Barbara Jarabica appeared on an Indian TV channel on Tuesday and debunked the “wanted” diamond trader’s claim that he was abducted from Antigua and Barbuda and taken to Dominica.
She also said that she had no inkling about Choksi’s fraudulent business dealings in India, and that everything about him “seemed really normal and he always seemed like a good friend".
Barbara claimed Choksi aggressively wooed her over the past year with presents of diamond bracelets and rings that turned out to be fake, as well as offering to help her start an online diamond trading business and, when the original pitch did not work, a real estate project.
Choksi and his nephew Nirav Modi had fled India in the first week of January 2018, weeks before a multi-crore scam in the Punjab National Bank rocked the Indian banking industry. The duo allegedly bribed officials of the state-run bank to get Letters of Undertaking (LoU) based on which they availed loans from overseas banks that remained unpaid.
Choksi had mysteriously gone missing on May 23 from Antigua and Barbuda, where he has been staying since 2018 as a citizen after he fled Delhi.
Meanwhile, the Dominica high court has adjourned the bail hearing of fugitive diamond merchant Mehul Choksi till June 11, local media reports stated on Wednesday. Choksi had approached the high court after the magistrate rejected his bail petition.
"I had hundreds of opportunities driving alone with him on the island and walking with him. If I wanted to abduct him, why would I do it at my home at busy daytime hours when everyone was there on the street, walking," she said, an assertion which undercuts the plank of Choksi's legal team that their client was kidnapped and dumped on the beach of Dominica.
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