Lankan back in court over Swiss murder

A Sri Lankan-born man arrested over a murder 14 years ago in Switzerland is due back in an Auckland court where he's expected to apply for bail.

The 42-year-old Grey Lynn man will appear in Auckland District Court on Wednesday and his lawyer is expected to apply for continued name suppression and to get his client released from custody.

The man was arrested last month on behalf of the Swiss government, which wants to extradite him and charge him with murdering his former partner, 23-year-old Kavitha Kandiah.

Ms Kandiah died in the Swiss city of Basel on December 13, 2000.

At a court appearance earlier this month, the man's lawyer Jim Boyack said the bail application would be on the grounds that until he was arrested, his client had been a law-abiding citizen with a wife and two children.

Police earlier said the man arrived in New Zealand in February 2001 using false ID and travel documents, and was granted New Zealand citizenship in 2004.

New Zealand has no extradition arrangement with Switzerland, where the arrested man lived from 1990 to late 2000. (Yahoo news)