LONDON: A 39-year-old man extradited from India was on Sunday charged in England with the kidnap, rape and murder of a British teenager more than four years ago.

Maninder Pal Singh Kohli was also charged with manslaughter, false imprisonment and perverting public justice. Hannah Foster, 17, was murdered as she walked home from a night out in Southampton on the southern English coast in March 2003.

The schoolgirl's strangled body was found dumped by a rural road outside the Hampshire port city. The Delhi High Court on Friday cleared Kohli's extradition. He was flown from Delhi to London and taken to a police station in Hampshire.

“This case marks the end of the extradition process and the beginning of the case through the UK justice system,” a Hampshire Police spokeswoman said. Kohli was due to appear before Southampton magistrates Monday for a remand hearing.

He fled Britain days after being named as a suspect, and was arrested in India's remote north-east in July 2004, after Foster's parents travelled to India and offered a reward for information leading to his arrest.—AFP

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