New York: US authorities have filed a murder charge against Indian businessman Pragnesh Desai for the death of his American fiancee Leona Swiderski and are seeking his extradition from India.

Desai, a resident of Palisades Park in New Jersey, is charged with arranging to get Swiderski, an aspiring model, killed during a trip to Mumbai to collect insurance worth $ 1 million.

The murder charge against Desai, owner of several Manhattan restaurants and '7-Eleven' stores in New Jersey, come nine months after an Indian trial judge acquitted him in the murder of Swiderski in February 2003.

However, he remains in jail in Mumbai as US authorities were seeking his extradition on mail fraud charges. But on Thursday (June 3, 2004), the authorities filed a murder charge against him, saying they had uncovered new evidence during the visit of FBI agents to India.

The charge announced Thursday accuses Desai of intentionally causing his fiancee to travel in foreign commerce with the purpose of causing her death.

Desai could be tried on the murder charges as Swiderski is an American citizen. He is alleged to have taken out two life insurance policies worth $ one million on his fiancee, making himself beneficiary shortly before they went on a trip to India last year. Desai faces US fraud charges in connection with those policies.

FBI spokesman Steven Kodak declined to elaborate as the new evidence.