India and Portugal on Thursday signed an extradition treaty coinciding with the state visit of Portuguese President, Anibal Cavaco Silva. While precise details of the extradition agreement were not known, it is expected to be on the lines of similar treaties India has signed with other European countries — namely France, Germany and Bulgaria.

The treaty has been in the offing for sometime now, especially after the deportation of Abu Salem and Monica Bedi to India in November 2005, which was incidentally done in the absence of a formal extradition treaty but a mere agreement. In the past few months, there has been active consultation on terms of the treaty, following which a high-level delegation from the Portuguese Justice Department rushed to Delhi last week to finalise the text of articles.

The Portuguese Government had been insistent that death penalty and life imprisonment, which are still awarded by Indian courts, be kept out as punishment for persons extradited from Portugal. As reported by The Indian Express last week, these clauses formed part of the last-minute consultations and are expected to be the key clauses.

When the Portuguese Government had agreed to extradite Abu Salem, Indian prosecutors, through the Ministry of External affairs, had agreed not to deliver either a death or life sentence. They had also agreed that other crimes would not be added to the list of crimes for which Salem was being extradited. The treaty was signed by Anand Sharma, MoS for External Affairs and Professor Joao Gomes Cravinho, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs.