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The couple were attacked by armed men in 2000 in the Punjab region of India. Jaswinder Sidhu’s body was found the next day, her throat slit. Her husband was badly beaten.

A B.C. trial court judge approved the pair’s extradition in 2014, but the decision was overturned on appeal. Last September, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the extradition could go ahead, citing assurances the federal government had received that the pair would not be mistreated.

But prior to the top court decision, lawyers for the accused presented the Justice Department with evidence they said raised fresh concerns about mistreatment and torture of prisoners in India.

Included in the evidence were affidavits from various people who had been held in custody in India, including two other co-accused from the same case.

“Both of these affidavits disclose what can only be described as shocking prison conditions,” Michael Klein, Badesha’s lawyer, wrote to the department.

One affidavit described the presence of flies and mosquitoes in the jails and the ease with which disease could spread. Another affidavit stated that whenever a prisoner falls sick, “there is no arrangement of doctors and the sick persons (sic) dies.”

But on Sept. 20, before the justice minister had rendered a decision on that new information, the accused were transferred to the Vancouver International Airport, their lawyers say.

Badesha says in an affidavit he was approached by guards at the North Fraser Pretrial Centre at 5:30 a.m. and told to get ready to be moved.