Toyah Cordingley: Australia flies man from India over beach murder

Australian police are extraditing a man from India over the murder of a young woman found dead on a Queensland tropical beach in 2018.

Rajwinder Singh is being flown from Delhi to Melbourne accompanied by detectives, and is due to arrive on Wednesday.

He is accused of killing Toyah Cordingley, 24.

Her body was discovered in October 2018 after what has been called a “frenzied and brutal and sadistic” attack.

The BBC understands that Mr Singh will first have to appear in court in the state of Victoria, before being moved to Queensland where the crime took place.

He will then face a magistrate in Brisbane – probably later this week – before being remanded in custody.

Mr Singh was arrested in Delhi in November last year, after the Queensland government put up a A$1m (£555,000; $672,000) reward for information.

Originally from Buttar Kalan in the Indian state of Punjab, at the time of the killing Mr Singh was living in Innisfail, about two hours from the crime scene.

Police allege that the 38-year-old fled Australia in the hours after the killing – and that he had stayed in Punjab for four years, avoiding arrest. He was detained by Indian officers who received a tip-off that Mr Singh was traveling to the Indian capital for a medical appointment.

Detectives have offered few details about how Ms Cordingley died.

She had gone to Wangetti Beach, between the popular tourist hotspots of Cairns and Port Douglas, to walk her dog on 21 October 2018, but never came home.

Her body was discovered by her father the next day, half-buried in sand dunes.

The A$1m reward is the highest ever offered in Queensland. When it was announced last year, Toyah’s father, Troy Cordingley said his daughter was “a young woman who will never get the chance to live a full life and all that entails… this was taken away from her”.

At the time of Mr Singh’s arrest, Queensland Police Minister Mark Ryan said the development had been “a long time coming” and marked “the next stage of delivering justice for Toyah”.