Jatinder Patti’s legal ordeal. London solicitor seeks huge compensation for arrest in Poland

That Jatinder Patti will receive compensation and damages is absolutely certain. It happens whenever it turns out that someone has been wrongfully arrested. However, the question how big a sum the court will grant him remains open. The amount the British lawyer demanded is quite considerable. A trial in this case is expected to begin next year.

The tvnwarszawa.pl portal has written about Mr Patti and his visit to Poland several times. It is still unclear today how a respected London solicitor, who has been living under the same address for nearly 20 years and travelling all over the world without any problems whatsoever, could have been detained after having Interpol Red Notice issued after him.

Mr Patti himself cannot understand why the police didn’t come to his home to detain him, especially with an arrest warrant in their hands. He was never in hiding.

On Friday, 12th January, 2018, he flew to Poland. During border check at Warsaw Chopin Airport the officers found out that he had been wanted.

"I was only meant to be in Poland for three days, I was due to fly back on the following Monday. But as soon as I landed at Warsaw Chopin Airport, that was the beginning of my problems. Because as soon as I handed my passport over to the border security, there was a huge delay before they decided to hand me my passport back. Before I knew it, there were two border security guards standing next to me. They asked me if I could step out of the line and they took me into a room. I was extremely confused at the time because I didn’t actually know what was happening. My level of Polish is non-existent and the people that would detain me didn’t really speak any English. So, there was a lot of confusion. I didn’t know why I was being detained, I couldn’t understand the explanation I was being given," Mr Patti stressed.

The next day he was detained by the court order. He spent 42 days locked in a detention centre at Warsaw’s Białołęka district. His forced stay in Poland had lasted even longer. Finally, he was acquitted of all charges only on 18 December, 2018 – more than 11 months after being detained. That’s why now he expects compensation and damages.

In the motion filed in the District Court in Warsaw, he calculated in great detail the costs of his forced stay in Poland. He claims he should receive 1.500 zlotys for each day spent in detention. His attorney, Mr Bogumił Zygmont, points out the unusual circumstances that had occured. Mr Patti, being a foreigner of Indian origin and having dark skin colour, had experienced many hardships while being detained. He didn’t speak Polish and so he had difficulties communicating with the guards. For the whole duration of his remand he didn’t receive any packages. He couldn’t take care of his sick mother, nor to see his son.

But that’s not all. Because Jatinder Patti claims that apart from harm he was subjected to, he also suffered serious costs. He has estimated them at 622.371 zlotys (approx. 125.000 GBP) and that’s how much he will claim for before the court. Along with 63.000 zlotys of damages, the claim amounts to nearly 700.000 zlotys (140.000 GBP).

Why such a high amount? Jatinder Patti had spent 42 days behind bars, but he was forced to stay in Poland for much longer. Even though the court had released the British lawyer from detention in February, 2018, he was prohibited to leave Poland, had his passport taken away, and was ordered to report at a police station on a regular basis. On top of that, he was ordered to pay 100.000-zloty bail.

So, for four months Mr Patti lived in Poland, and each week he obediently reported at the police station on Żytnia street.

At the beginning of summer holidays, the court softened the sanctions. Mr Patti was allowed to leave Poland. However, as precautionary measures, the court kept the bail and placed the British citizen under police supervision.

The British lawyer returned to England. However, each week, on every weekend, he was flying to Poland to sign the presence list at the police station. Every single week. "Not a single time had he failed to carry out his duty," Mr Patti’s attorney said in a conversation with tvnwarszawa.pl portal.

Despite that, the prosecutor’s office filed a complaint on the decision to waive the ban on leaving Poland. At the end of October, already eight months after Jatinder Patti had been released from custody, and three months after his return to England, the court changed the decision and again imposed a ban to leave Poland on him. Mr Patti had to live in Poland again until December, 2018.

The whole situation had a price tag on it. The London lawyer has calculated it very thoroughly. He spent nearly 9.500 zlotys on flights. Renting a flat in Warsaw cost him nearly 20.000 zlotys. However, the biggest part of Jatinder Patti’s claim – over 570.000 zlotys – is compensation for the loss of income. That’s because after being arrested, he lost a very well paid job at a London law firm. The job he found after being acquitted was four times less paid.

Furthermore, the lawyer demands over 20.000 zlotys of compensation for holidays he had booked before being arrested, as well for legal counselling.

Jatinder Patti filed the motion for compensation and damages in court in May, 2019. The date of the trial hasn’t been set as yet.

On November 13th, we asked the court about the date of the trial. Only two days after our inquiry, the judge assigned to the case decided she should be exluded from the adjudicating panel, as earlier on she was the one who had made the decision to arrest Patti. This fact wouldn’t have guaranteed full impartiality. Why this decision was made half a year after the case had reached the court? The Warsaw District Court press office answered our question as follows: "due to signficant overburderning of the reporting judge with examining multi-volume and multi-person cases, as well as justified leave of absence".

On December 11th, the case was filed anew, this time with newly appointed judge. The date of the trial, however, still hasn’t been scheduled.

Jatinder Patti is a British citizen, but his parents come from India. In 2003, he set off for his first-ever trip to the land of his ancestors. That’s where he met a woman whom he decided to marry. Shortly after the ceremony, his wife told him she was very glad because thanks to the marriage her family would be able to pay their debts.

The Brit got scared. He backed out of the promise he made in India to provide for his wife, and filed for divorce. In response, his wife went to the police in India and reported that crime was committed. She claimed, among other things, that he "demanded dowry". Based on this report, the Interpol issued a warrant after Jatinder Patti.

The Polish law does not recognise such crime, there’s no such provision in the Polish criminal code. Unlike the Indian law.

In the local culture there was a custom under which, before marriage, the groom demanded dowry from the bride’s family, which after the wedding would become the husband’s property. In order to curb this custom, a Dowry Prohibition Act was adopted in 1983, which made it illegal to give or receive dowry in any form. Demanding dowry began to be treated as an offense and persecuted to the full extent of the law. A simple notification regarding an alleged offense of this sort resulted in temporary arrest of the suspect.

Soon after it became clear that the spirit of the legislation has been violated, as it has been very often used by wives against their husbands in marital conflicts. The problem has been highlighted not only by the Indian media, but also by the BBC. In one of the articles on this issue, the author wrote that between 1998 and 2015, based on the said legislation, 2.7 million people had been arrested.

"It’s a purely Kafkaesque case. Mr Patti is a victim, not a perpetrator," attorney for the British citizen, Mr Bogumił Zygmont, said when we had first written about the case. "The offenses that my client is being accused of should be analysed holistically by the Polish justice system, taking into account cultural differences," the attorney stressed.

In his view, the court completely ignored this thread by placing Mr Patti under temporary arrest.

In response to our questions, the Warsaw District Court press office admitted at the time that the line of inquiry pertaining to Indian law had not been pursued at all: "Neither the court session protocol from 19th January, 2018, nor the ruling issued on that day suggest that the so-called Dowry Prohibition Act was being considered," reads the reply.

The prosecutor’s office, as well as judges who had been examining the case before, took the view that demanding dowry could be treated as a form of fraud.

Autor: Piotr Machajski, gf / Źródło: TVN24 News in English, tvnwarszawa.pl