BACKPACKER JAILED IN INDIA TO BE RETURNED TO UK

Salvatore and Teresa Malluzzo, Patrick's parents

THE INDEPENDENT - LENA CORNER

But former City worker must still serve remainder of 10-year sentence for drugs possession charges.

A 33-year old backpacker from Kent serving a 10-year sentence in one of India's most notorious prisons for a crime he says he didn't commit, has been given approval by the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs to serve the remainder of his sentence in the UK, The IoS can exclusively reveal.

Patrick Malluzzo has spent six years in Rajasthan's Kota prison, sharing a cell with more than 50 other inmates and has suffered serious illness. His mother, Teresa Malluzzo, who hasn't seen her son for seven years, is hoping the British government will get him home as soon as possible.

Malluzzo was arrested at Mumbai airport in 2004 and charged with possession of cannabis. In a trial that was conducted entirely in Hindi and which presented no DNA or fingerprint evidence linking him to the drugs, he was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Fair Trials International, which has been working on the case since 2007, describes it as "a travesty – a grossly unfair trial in a language he could not understand".