A verdict in the gun-running trial of former Southend Tory Peter Bleach, who has been held in an Indian jail for five years, has been delayed again.

Bleach, 47, is charged along with five Latvians and an Indian, with arms smuggling, conspiracy and sedition. If convicted he could face the death penalty.

He has spent the past five years in prison in Calcutta after being arrested by Indian police for allegedly parachuting in crates of weapons from a cargo plane on to a field in eastern Indian in December 1995.

The verdict was due on Monday - but has been delayed until later this month.

The former army intelligence officer, who was Conservative party chairman in Southend's St Luke's ward 18 years ago, has always claimed he was acting as a James Bond-style "double agent" and was setting up a bogus deal to expose Bangladesh firearms criminals.

He said in 1998 he had gone undercover to trap IRA terrorists.

Last year his close friend Rochford and Southend East MP Sir Teddy Taylor took his case to Home Secretary Jack Straw and urged him to tell the Indian government that the security services and the Department of Trade were aware of the mission.

So far the British Government has not taken up the case or confirmed his story.

Sir Teddy said: "The last I heard from him was a letter last month when he said the judge in the case had been changed and that he wasn't happy about it.

"Last year the Home Secretary said there was nothing he could do. But what I will do now is go back to the Government to get them to tell the Indian government the truth about this."

On Monday Judge PK Biswas deferred judgment to hear arguments on a petition filed by a human rights activist, accusing the Indian investigators of fabricating evidence.

Crates of rocket launchers, rifles, grenades and missiles were allegedly seized by the Indian authorities after Indian air force jets intercepted a cargo plane and its crew, one of whom was allegedly Peter Bleach, in 1995.

The weapons were allegedly intended for an anti-communist group in West Bengal, a state with a communist government.

Bleach - former leading Southend Tory

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.