Harinder Singh Cheema agreed Wednesday to be returned to Canada to face trial in the 2007 slaying of Gurpeet Kaur, 29, who was found dead in the couple’s Montreal apartment on Christmas Day.
Cheema was arrested on July 2 after authorities discovered that fingerprints on an immigration application filed under an alias matched those of the fugitive, who had allegedly fled Canada after Kaur’s body was found, according to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper.
Kaur, 29, the mother of the couple’s two young children, had been beaten and strangled and left on the balcony of the apartment shared with Cheema in Montreal.
Cheema waived extradition to Canada during a hearing before a U.S. District Court judge in San Jose, the newspaper said.
Cheema had been named as one of Interpol‘s most-wanted fugitives.
Canadian authorities confirmed that the fingerprints on the application, and the photo supplied with the immigration application, were actually those of Cheema, who had been living in Fremont under the name of Baljit Singh, according to an affadavit filed by U.S. authorities.
California authorities arrested Cheema at Canada’s request, the newspaper said..
“The fact that Cheema has evaded Canadian authorities for such a long period and established a new life under an alias indicated he is a flight risk,” the affidavit said.
A 2012 wanted notice published by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Cheema dropped the two children at a friend’s house in 2007 and never returned.
Fremont is a city of 225,000 on the southeastern shore of San Francisco Bay.
