Vanuatu PM cancels fugitive Lalit Modi’s passport — as a result of, clearly

In what is perhaps the least stunning transfer of the week, Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Jotham Napat has instructed the Citizenship Fee to revoke the passport issued to fugitive businessman Lalit Modi, as reported by PTI. This growth comes sizzling on the heels of Modi’s gracious try and give up his Indian passport on the Indian Excessive Fee in London.

In an announcement that hardly masked his exasperation, Napat clarified that whereas commonplace background checks — sure, together with Interpol screenings — turned up no prison convictions on the time of Modi’s software, issues acquired attention-grabbing within the final 24 hours.

Apparently, Interpol has twice rejected India’s requests to problem an alert on Modi, citing a fairly inconvenient lack of substantive judicial proof. Had such an alert been issued, his citizenship software would have been robotically rejected — one thing that, in hindsight, may need saved everybody a whole lot of bother.

Napat didn’t mince phrases when he reminded everybody that holding a Vanuatu passport is a privilege, not a proper — a sentiment that, let’s be trustworthy, Modi in all probability didn’t discover very amusing. Citizenship, Napat confused, is supposed for authentic causes, and — shocker — dodging extradition isn’t one among them.

For these simply tuning in, final week, reviews emerged that Modi, the person behind the massively profitable Indian Premier League (IPL), had acquired Vanuatu’s citizenship by its Citizenship by Funding programme. Vanuatu, a picturesque little island nation within the South Pacific, is well-known for promoting passports to traders at a reasonably value.