<span style="color: #222222;">Fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi, fighting extradition to India on charges over the nearly two billion dollars Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud and money laundering case, is set to be produced before a UK court for his trial today. The trial will take place in a part-remote setting due to the coronavirus lockdown.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The 49-year-old jeweller, who has been lodged at Wandsworth Prison in south-west London since his arrest in March last year, is expected to be produced physically at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London. However, given the social distancing measures being followed by prisons and courts, District Judge Samuel Goozee had conceded that an alternative would be for him to be produced via videolink.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The five-day hearing starting today relates to the Indian government's extradition request certified by the UK government last year. The case has been filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and relates to a large-scale fraud upon an Indian PSU through the fraudulent obtaining of letters of understanding (LoUs) and the laundering of the proceeds of that fraud.</span><br />''  <br />