New Delhi, June 2: The first wife of Maninder Pal Singh Kohli, the prime suspect in the rape and murder of British teenager Hannah Foster, turned hostile in a court here today.

Kohli had fled England on March 16, 2003, two days after the 17-year-old’s body was found. He was brought here from Chandigarh where he had been lodged after his arrest on July 15, 2004 from Kalimpong. Kohli was living in the hill station with his second wife Bharati.

Appearing in the court of additional chief metropolitan magistrate Ravinder Dudeja, who is conducting the extradition hearings, the UK-based Shailender Kaur claimed that her statements implicating her husband last year were made in an “atmosphere of fear” created by the British police.

“My depositions dated November 2, 2004 in UK was not authored by me and I was simply asked to affix my signature even without knowing its contents by using sheer force and coercion,” she said in an affidavit filed in court.

Shailender denied the part of her statement that gave the impression that Kohli was nervous when he came home on the night of the murder.

“He neither revealed any such event nor did he say he was in trouble. He was in a very balanced state of mind and never showed symptoms of anxiety,” she said.

Shailender alleged that she had been kept hostage in Britain and was allowed to come to India only following international pressure.

Kohli, who named his first wife as a “crucial defence witness”, too, had accused investigating officers of keeping her at an “unknown place”.

He had also moved the United Nations Human Rights Commission and the European Court on Human Rights, urging assistance to find out her whereabouts.