ByKatie Hunter and Graeme Esson, BBC ScotlandPublished11 minutes agoA Scottish Sikh activist has been released from prison in India after being detained for almost nine years without being convicted.
Jagtar Singh Johal, from Dumbarton, was arrested in 2017 in connection with alleged terror offences.
The Indian authorities have accused the 39-year-old of having a role in a series of targeted killings of religious and political figures - allegations which he denies.
Johal was granted bail at Delhi High Court on 18 September, but has only now been released from detention.
He had to surrender his passport as part of his bail conditions and is barred from speaking to the media about the case.
Johal was arrested in the Punjab region in 2017, just weeks after his wedding in the country.
He is accused of travelling to Paris in 2013 and handing about £3,000 to the Khalistan Liberation Force – an armed organisation which has carried out violent attacks in pursuit of a separate Sikh state.
It is claimed that this money was used to fund weapons to kill, or attempt to kill, religious and political figures in Punjab in 2016 and 2017.
The Indian authorities claim Johal is a member of the KLF and that "he actively participated and had complete knowledge of the conspiracy".
However, his supporters say he was targeted for blogging about alleged human rights abuses against the Sikh community in India and was coerced into signing a false confession to participation in the killings.
Johal's family say no concrete evidence has been presented against him and that the case was built on the testimony of unreliable witnesses.
His imprisonment was recognised by a UN panel as arbitrary detention in 2022 and he has claimed to have been tortured.
Indian authorities have previously denied the torture claim and have repeatedly maintained due process is being followed.
Image source, Free JagtarImage caption, Campaigners say there is no credible evidence against Jagtar Singh Johal
Last year Johal was acquitted in a case where he was accused of financially supporting the KLF terror group.
He remained in prison because he faces federal charges in eight other cases, for which he potentially faces the death penalty.
However, his legal team argues that these cases are almost identical and that the other charges should be dismissed.
There have been hundreds of hearings over the past nine years and the bail order concludes that the trial is "certainly not likely to conclude anytime soon".
His brother Gurpreet Singh Johal - who has lobbied successive governments calling for his release - said the decision to grant bail had been a "really important milestone".
"It is just a first step, but it is a step in the right direction," he said.
The move was also welcomed by politicians and the legal charities Redress and Reprieve, who represent Johal in the UK.
Reprieve's deputy executive director Dan Dolan said the release was "a really important moment" - but that Johal still faced the death penalty on "trumped up charges".
"It is really important that we recognise he's not out of the woods yet," he said.
"We now really need to push to get him home."
Redress said Johal's release from prison could not undo "the intolerable suffering caused by nine years of arbitrary detention".
Jagtar Singh Johal granted bail nine years after being detained in India
Detained Scot enduring 'psychological torture' in Indian jail
