This exposes the Pakistanis, both prosecution and defence. The defence is accusing the prosecution of delaying tactics which is true. The defence, for its part, has also been delaying the case. Anybody who cares to go through the link posted below can see that clearly.Lawyers defending the seven suspects, including Lakhvi, filed an application in which they claimed the government was resorting to various tactics to delay the trial.
First, the terrorists’ Western links were not even touched. On December 1, 2008, the Daily Mail of London reported that seven of the assailants were of Pakistani origin with British passports. That number soon fell to two, and a few days later Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said no British Muslims were involved. Despite the whitewash, some traces remained, so on December 14, 2008, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown rushed to New Delhi to quash this line of inquiry and urge Mr Manmohan Singh to allow MI6 to interrogate Kasab. Why this urgency? And why did India agree when at St Petersburg, Russia, in 2006, then British Prime Minister Tony Blair had repulsed Mr Singh’s request to hand over 14 terrorists who had committed attacks in India and were harboured in Britain?
The then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also arrived in New Delhi to demand non-action. As the Congress’s Prime Minister-in-waiting was then busy with the wedding ceremonies of former Amethi MP Satish Sharma’s son, nationalism was easily superseded by the personal convenience of the Page Three people. Soon afterwards, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband arrived, gave unsolicited advice on Jammu & Kashmir, a clean chit to Pakistan, and rejected India’s demand for the conspirators behind the attack.
It is pertinent that Pakistan initially expressed willingness to cooperate, offering to send the ISI chief to India to assist in the investigation. But Islamabad was sharply rebuked by its British and American friends (read masters) and forced to backtrack. Scotland Yard and FBI arrived instead, obviously to ascertain the extent of evidence available with India. The UPA supinely agreed to let the FBI interrogate Kasab without any reciprocal accord; India is now running in circles trying to get a look at David Coleman Headley who did the major part of the reconnaissance for the attack!
The UPA shamelessly outsourced the task of chastising Islamabad to Washington, DC, and London. A dossier of 20 most-wanted terrorists was copied to major world capitals; Ms Condoleezza Rice did not promise to get even a token two for New Delhi, which meekly accepted her warning not to aggravate regional conflict because of American preoccupation in Afghanistan. No one followed up on the satellite phone recovered from the trawler with the body of the Gujarati captain, which had been hijacked to Karachi Port. While there, the phone was used to make calls to Australia, where the CIA has a famous outpost!
After Gopal Subramaniam's US visit, it appeared that all legalities had been sorted out with the Justice Deptt. and the access looked imminent. Now, Roemer is talking of 'weeks'. It appears that the access to Headley is linked with something else. The only thing that is likely to happen in the next few weeks is the foreign minister level talks. Pakistan has always been claiming that India was 'turned around' by international pressure. The dots can be easily connected.“We are working together in historic ways on providing access to people like Headley. The U.S. is cooperating at the highest levels of our government to eventually provide access to this person who helped pull off the savagery of this attack in Mumbai on 26/11. We have been providing indirect access and sharing intelligence for months and months and months about that acquired information and now the door is open. The opportunity is there for India to walk through it, in the weeks ahead, to get direct access [to Headley] in the appropriate way, at the appropriate time,” he said.
Terming the process “an unprecedented move to open the door” by the U.S. government, he said the act of cooperation underlined the significance of the India-U.S. relationship.
“And let me underscore that as a member of the 9/11 Commission when we sought access as Americans to Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, we couldn't get it.”
chaanakya wrote:Just listening to usual NDTV blah blah debate whether kasab should be used as future witness and be allowed to live.Dr Kiran Bedi is making a point that Rule of Law should be respected, kasab must face his fate, we should not mix diplomacy with rule of law and keep kasab for some quid pro quo with piggistan, we can not interrogate a convicted prisoner in jail(rightly) as prisoners do have rights in jail.
There are two other gentlemen and one through video conf trying to make a case for living kasab. Some one is against death penalty. And a goat is making case for state terrorism and to hang NM etc.
So it now already started. What a shame for us that we can not think clearly like Dr Kiran Bedi.
Added Later
Against Death
PN Bhagawati arguing (on VC)
Prof Kamal Mitra Chatterjee JNU
K C Singh
Mahasweta Devi
For Death
Dr Kiran Bedi Pleading for time limits for execution after finality of judgement . Don't keep on mercy petition.
Like the Pakis, they are using terrorists for achieving their foreign policy goals.SSridhar wrote: After Gopal Subramaniam's US visit, it appeared that all legalities had been sorted out with the Justice Deptt. and the access looked imminent. Now, Roemer is talking of 'weeks'. It appears that the access to Headley is linked with something else. The only thing that is likely to happen in the next few weeks is the foreign minister level talks. Pakistan has always been claiming that India was 'turned around' by international pressure. The dots can be easily connected.
See here for a chronology of court drama in PakistanKhawaja Sultan Ahmed, lawyer for Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, a suspect in the Mumbai terrorist attacks, presented the confessional statement of Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving gunman of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, before the Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday. {How did the counsel for the accused get it ? Should it not have been presented by the State which is also the prosecution ?}
A three-member SC bench – comprising Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Ghulam Rabbani and Justice Khalilur Ramday – adjourned the hearing for two weeks after receiving Kasab’s statement, which is both in English and Hindi languages. The court observed that it required time to go through the long confessional statement.
The bench was hearing an appeal filed by Lakhvi, one of the seven suspects being tried by an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi. In his confessional statement, Kasab named Lakhvi as the ringleader in connection with the Mumbai attacks.
Ahmed argued that Kasab’s confessional statement had no legal value in Pakistan. “The statement was not given in a Pakistani court, so Lakhvi cannot be named as a co-accused in the case or be tried,” he said.
. Its best to declare that India is an emerging "global superpower of the 21st century" and keep dreaming. The most just, bare minimum outcome of Mumbai should have been the world joining India in boooking TSPA/ISI for their crimes, trying them at the hauge, and forcing TSP to pay reparations to the victims. And last but not the least, a complete catharis of the TSP state so that such launching such terror attacks would be impossible.CRS, I do agree with your last paragraph but, I find several fallacies in the line of argument that you have put forth otherwise.CRamS wrote:But I find this line of reasoning a bit unsatisfying. . .
So, the only thing that India will get out of talking to Headley is some banal stuff, which India alreday knows about and even TSP won't have an issue admitting about "non state actors".
That is OT here, so won't discuss much except to state that when Chattisinghpora occurred in c. 2000 we felt it was a turning point; later the same year, when Red Fort attack happened, it shocked us all no ends by the sheer audacity and we expected reaction; when the October 2001 J&K assembly attack happened, we felt the same again though we were getting immune to such attacks by then; a few months later, when the Indian Parliament itsel was attacked, we felt it was an inflexion point and nothing worse can happen. But, worse things have happened like the 2003 Mumbai commuter train attacks, serial attacks in Bangalore, Delhi, Ahmedabad etc culminating in 26/11. So, you are right but I won't blame only Mr. Manmohan Singh for the misplaced sense of magnanimity, generosity and forgivenness.Tell me, short of another Mumbai-like attack, is anything going to stop MMS in his Paki sojourn?
Mr. Krishna also said that during his visit to the United States next month, he would take up the issue of extradition of Pakistani-American terrorist David Headley to India.
“We have an extradition treaty with United States and Headley, with whatever evidence we have gathered, is a kingpin of the Mumbai terror attacks. So this question will be taken up with the U.S.,” he said.
Google has headline that Indians are against the Paki based terrorists who come to India.ramana wrote:Google has headline that Pakis are against death sentence to Kasab.
SSridhar wrote:
First, the fundamental point about access to Headley. It is our sovereign right to have access to him as it is now very clear, by American admission itself and by the bits & pieces of information that they have given to us, that Headley was a very important participant of 26/11.
Saturday, May 15, 2010 14:27 PM
Letters: Pakistan Embassy responds
The Jakarta Post of May 9 published a Singapore-based report entitled "Next move is Pakistan's". The report talks about the latest meeting between the prime ministers of Pakistan and India in the Bhutan capital Thimphu on the eve of the SAARC Summit.
The report presumes that the Indian home minister was right in calling the verdict of the Mumbai court a "lesson to Pakistan to stop exporting terror to us". Hence "the ball now is in Pakistan's court". I am really surprised by the audacious demand of The Straits Times to secure a speedy conviction of the alleged co-conspirators as "a proof to India and the world of its sincerity about wanting to control terror".
First, I would like to point out that the judicial system in Pakistan does not work under political leadership. It is independent and free from state control. Second, the Indian government has been, time and again, asked to provide additional information, by sharing the investigation statements of the culprit (Ajmal Kasab), so that the legal process against the alleged co-terrorists can proceed to trial. Last, Pakistan has done enough and this fact should be acknowledged by the international community.
We are prepared to do more, provided we are assisted, in tracking down illusive terrorists and their cohorts. We need technology, intelligence sharing and co-operation to combat terrorists. Mere accusation does not serve the purpose. ………………………
Jakarta Post
arun wrote:Is not Irfan Husain’s criticism of Jihad an Un-Islamic act of kuffar that is not in keeping with the IEDology of Pakistan?
Meanwhile this portion of the article should put paid to any expectation of our foreign policy establishment that the Courts of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan will deliver justice for the victims of the 26/11 Mumbai Islamic Terrorist attack by convicting the co-conspirators of Pakistani origin Islamic Terrorist Ajmal Kasab:
Even when some of these terrorists are arrested, they are seldom convicted. Often the investigation is botched; in other cases, the judges are either too scared or too sympathetic to the cause of jihad to lock these people up.
Irfan Husain has forgotten to add two more points. One is that the case is deliberately presented weakly by the State so as to enable the terrorists to escape. This has been repeatedly demonstrated and brazenly too in the Professor Hafeez Saeed case. The number of terrorists set free by the courts, especially the LHC or its bench, is truly mind-boggling. Two, the State does not perform its duty by thoroughly investigating the case. It does a cursory investigation and naturally the case is full of holes.arun wrote:Irfan Husain Op-ed, Heart of darkness
Meanwhile this portion of the article should put paid to any expectation of our foreign policy establishment that the Courts of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan will deliver justice for the victims of the 26/11 Mumbai Islamic Terrorist attack by convicting the co-conspirators of Pakistani origin Islamic Terrorist Ajmal Kasab:
Even when some of these terrorists are arrested, they are seldom convicted. Often the investigation is botched; in other cases, the judges are either too scared or too sympathetic to the cause of jihad to lock these people up.
Did Omani carry out Mumbai recce for 26/11 before Headley?NEW DELHI: Early this week, home minister P Chidambaram suggested that India needed to redefine cross-border terrorism since it was not just from Pakistan but "extends beyond to the Middle East". Officials in the security establishment said the home minister's reference to Middle East wasn't just an off-the-cuff remark but a reflection of recent realization about the sprawling operations of Lashkar-e-Taiba and its sympathizers in the Gulf region.
Terror operatives in the Gulf have had a far more significant role in orchestrating several of the recent terror attacks than what was known until recently, sources in the security establishment said. They funded the serial blasts in Bangalore in 2008 and assisted the escape of its mastermind Tadiyantavide Naseer to Bangladesh, and probably had a significant role in the 26/11 attacks. More noticeably, most of the intercepts of terror communications in recent times too show intricate links to the Gulf region.
Extensive details of LeT activities in Gulf region have been emerging during the interrogation of Sarfaraz Nawaz, a Keralite who played a crucial role in the serial blasts in Bangalore on July 25, 2008. Nawaz was a key link between LeT's Gulf leadership and its sympathizers in south India. Omani authorities handed over Nawaz to Indian agencies a few months ago. He arranged funds for the Bangalore blasts and helped Naseer, who executed the serial blasts, escape to Bangladesh, where he was later arrested and brought back to India.
Investigators believe, based on Nawaz's interrogation and fresh inputs received from Gulf contacts, that LeT has been using the Gulf region as a major logistics centre for recruitment, financing and movement of Indians to Pakistan. The terrorist group is also running several businesses in the region, through which it is able to move money and provide visas to its cadres.
A Pakistani, Wali alias Rehan, may be running the entire LeT operations in the Gulf region, according to investigators. He is being assisted by several others including some local people such as Omani citizen Abdul Aziz Al Hooti, who procured some of the SIM cards for the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. Al Hooti is now in the custody of authorities in Oman, for planning to carry out local terror attacks. In Qatar, LeT operations are looked after by Abu Farris, whose main work is to attract Indian expatriates to jihad.
The LeT network in the Gulf has managed to recruit several dozen Indian Muslim youngsters for training in Pakistan, many of whom have come back to India to carry out strikes. Many of these men are former SIMI members who had moved to extremist views over the past two decades. Their role in assisting LeT was increasingly becoming clear, said one of the officials working on the region. These former SIMI cadres are also involved in assisting political movements such as the NDF (National Development Front) and PDP (People's Democratic Party), both based in Kerala, find funding and support.
More on Ali Abdul Aziz al Hooti. I don't understand why this fuss was being kicked up now, because I had said before that this guy was involved in 26/11, after the fact that Omani authorities mentioned Ali was in Mumbai a few weeks before 26/11. Indian authorities were aware of this for the past 1 year. Why investigate this angle now?NEW DELHI: David Coleman Headley was not the only 'foreigner' deployed by Lashkar-e-Taiba for organizing the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, ongoing investigations reveal. In a fresh twist to the 26/11 attack investigations, credible evidence is emerging that some of the logistics for the LeT plot may have come from the Gulf region.
According to dependable sources in the security establishment, an Omani national, Abdul Aziz al-Hooti aka Ali, may have played a major role in assisting LeT execute the operation. As of now, the investigators believe that Ali provided some of the SIM cards used in the Mumbai attacks by the 10 terrorists who landed in Mumbai on November 26, 2008. Ali is currently in the custody of Oman authorities for plotting to carry out terror attacks in Oman.
A source in the Indian security establishment told TOI that they were in touch with the Oman authorities for further cooperation.
Ali is an Omani citizen married to a Chinese woman, but has strong links in India. His mother is from the Sangli area of Maharashtra and probably has wide contacts in the state. Sources said Ali was in Maharashtra for several days just before the attacks. It is not clear where he travelled to, and who all he kept in touch with during his stay in the state. Those details could reveal the local angle to the Mumbai attacks.
First details of Ali's specific involvement emerged during the interrogation of Sarfaraz Nawaz, a Malayali who was arrested in Oman and is now in Indian custody, for masterminding the July 25, 2008 Bangalore blasts. Nawaz was brought to India sometime last year. Omani national Ali had told Nawaz that he brought at least five SIM cards from Mumbai and passed it on to LeT before the 26/11 attacks.
However, sources now believe that Ali had far more involvement in the Mumbai attack than just providing the SIM cards. Among the possibilities are, speculated a source in the security establishment, that Ali may have provided the initial recce of Mumbai before Headley entered the scene and that Ali may have also arranged some local logistics help.
It has always been a mystery to investigators how the 10 terrorists who landed in Mumbai could so well carry out the carnage, on many occasions exhibiting military precision and extreme familiarity far beyond GPS precision and Google Earth. From the very day of the attack, many seasoned intelligence and security experts suspected that the terrorists had local support. Even today, many investigators believe that Headley's recce of Mumbai was not just enough for the execution of the carnage. Revelations on Ali now shed more light on the enormous planning that went into the Mumbai attacks.
The Indian security establishment now has a far better understanding of the influence of LeT in the Gulf region, and believes Ali was a key operator for the agency. They believe Ali, around 32 years old, helped in the movement of LeT recruits from India to Pakistan for training.
Among those whose movement to Pakistan Ali facilitated is Fahim Ansari, who was arrested for terrorist activities in India but was recently acquitted in the Mumbai attack case. Ali lived opposite the Royal Palace in Muscat and owns a transport business, Barkat Ali Ikha, Ruwi, which may be partially funded by LeT, sources say. Ali was also into actively recruiting expatriates for LeT from the Gulf region.
Waqas Ahmad was among the hundreds of Lahore cricket fans who crossed the Wagah border five years ago to watch their country play India in New Delhi. . . But Ahmad didn't make the match — and never caught the train home. . . The Uttar Pradesh police located Ahmad last summer at Bithoor on the outskirts of Kanpur. Neighbours knew him as Rajesh Kumar. Ahmad had obtained a driving licence and a voter-identification card to support his ‘fiction,' the term spies use for their cover-identities. Investigators allege that Ahmad was a covert ISI operative, tasked with recording the movements of Indian military units. . . . after the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigations began to share details of the interrogation of Pakistani-American jihadist David Coleman Headley, Ahmad's story gathered a startling new significance. The phone number he used to contact his handlers for funds, it turned out, was among those Headley had used to speak with three serving Pakistan Army personnel who, he told the FBI, had helped organise his mission to carry out the reconnaissance that would lead the Lashkar's assault team to its targets in Mumbai.{This is why I say that Indian investigators must access Headley even if it is late.} . . . Perhaps the most important gap in Pakistan's investigation is the absence of any detail of just who carried out pre-attack reconnaissance — and on whose orders. . . . The second major gap in the FIA investigation is this: it tells us next to nothing about Lashkar commanders who used satellite phone connections and voice-over-Internet connections from a still-undetermined location in Pakistan. . . Thirdly, the FIA investigation offers little insight into the training of the assault team. The July dossier offers no detailed account of the camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Lahore where the team was trained. Nor has the FIA been able to arrest other jihadists who trained with the group. Pakistan claims it has been unable to locate the key Lashkar operative,Muzammil Bhat, who is alleged by the Mumbai police to have overseen the training of the group. But in December 2009, journalists Adnan Khan and Michael Petrou, reporting for the Canadian magazine, Macleans, located Bhat at a Lashkar facility near Muzaffarabad. . . . Finally, Pakistan's July 2009 dossier dealt at some length with the question who financed the attacks — but the FIA has chosen not to prosecute most of those who put up the cash.
Ajmal Kasab, Pakistani terrorist sentenced to death in the Mumbai terror attack case, has got a new identity with the jail authorities labelling him as Qaidi No C-7096.
Kasab usually gets up at 7 a.m and spends time in reading books and Quran. He also performs namaz five times a day, the sources said.
Meanwhile, preparations are in full swing to send the copy of 26/11 judgement along with all documents, affidavits and statements of witnesses to the Bombay High Court for confirmation of the death sentence awarded to Kasab.
Perhaps he sought to take advantage of post accident chaos at Mangalore airport.
Abdul Samad Bhatkal, suspected to be one of the conspirators of 26/11 attack in Mumbai was picked-up at the Bajpe airport in Mangalore on Monday (May 24). He landed at the airport on a Dubai flight that touched down the city at 8.30 am.
It is suspected that he was on his way to Bhatkal from where he hails and is also a relative of Riyaz Bhatkal, key man of the Indian Mujahideen.
It is said that he was in Pakistan during and after the 26/11 attack and was one of the conspirators of the Mumbai attack.
There was lookout notice served against Samad from past eight months for his alleged involvement in 26/11 attack. Anti-terrorist squad that arrived from Mumbai has taken him back.
FLASH | Tuesday, May 25, 2010 | Email | Print |
Evidence against Faheem, Sabauddin 'fragile'
PTI | Mumbai
The 26/11 special court has come down heavily on the prosecution and investigating agency for submitting "doubtful" and "fragile" evidence against accused Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed that led to their acquittal in the Mumbai terror attack case.
"The evidence of the only prosecution witness is doubtful and unreliable. The investigating agency has failed to provide quality evidence against the duo (Faheem and Sabauddin)," the 1600-page judgement, a copy of which is with PTI, said.
The court had acquitted Faheem and Sabauddin on May 3 by giving them the benefit of doubt.
Witness Nooruddin Shaikh had deposed in court that he and another person, Bharat Thakur, had travelled to Nepal in January 2008 where he saw Ansari hand over maps of Mumbai target locations to Sabauddin at a Kathmandu guesthouse.
According to the prosecution, these maps were used by the Pakistani terrorists, including Ajmal Kasab, and one such map was found in the trouser pocket of slain terrorist Abu Ismail.
"Shaikh has not produced any documentary evidence of his travel and stay at Nepal. The witness has admitted that a record is maintained at Sonavali border with regard to entry of persons into Nepal. He was not able to produce any entry slip. The investigating agency has not made any attempt to collect this evidence and not even tried to verify if Shaikh had visited Nepal," the court observed.
"The prosecution has also not examined Bharat Thakur to corroborate Shaikh's evidence. The prosecution's explanation that
Thakur is not traceable is very feeble and does not appeal to the court's reason," the judgement states, adding Thakur was one of the most important witnesses to prove the prosecution's case against Faheem and Sabauddin.
The court accepted the arguments of Faheem's lawyer R B Mokashi that there were no wrinkles or bloodstains on the map recovered from the body of Ismail.
"In my consideration, had the map remained in the trouser pocket of Ismail for such a long time it would have in fact been spoiled to a large extent. This evidence is thus highly doubtful," Judge Tahaliyani observed.
All the evidences submitted by the prosecution to connect Faheem and Sabauddin to the 26/11 terror attack case are found to be "doubtful and tainted", the court remarked.
"There are many loose ends and there is scope of doubting each and every piece of evidence. I do not think such fragile pieces of evidence are sufficient to prove the charges against Faheem and Sabauddin," it states.
"The main conspirators had used best available technology like VOIP and Google Earth. Therefore this rustic sketch map allegedly prepared by Faheem does not fit in the scheme of the conspirators," Judge Tahaliyani observed.
One would really like to know what evidence was presented. Pakistan lied to the UNSC that it had banned JuD while all it did was to remove its name as a 'registered charity'. Why should it care for India ?A three-member SC bench headed by Justice Nasirul Mulk heard the petitions challenging the LHC’s ruling regarding release of Hafiz Saeed.
The judges said in their remarks that no citizen could be deprived of his freedom on presumptions, as no solid proof was presented regarding Saeed’s links with Al-Qaeda or his involvement in Mumbai attacks.
Looks like that was the case per Rediff News report. He made it past immigration and was picked up at luggage/baggage area.chanaakya wrote:
Perhaps he sought to take advantage of post accident chaos at Mangalore airport.
So, either the Govt. of Pakistan did not present all the information provided by the GoI or the information provided by the GoI was insufficient due to the high standards of probity in such matters in Pakistan.“We do appreciate that the world has changed after the event of 9/11 and that people are being detained at Bagram prison in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba or Poland, but there is a burden on us that we could not allow detention on speculations since our Constitution guarantees certain rights to people like liberty and access to fair trial,” observed Justice Jawad S. Khwaja, a member of the bench.
“Should we throw out all rights merely because someone in the Punjab secretariat is saying differently?” the judge asked.
Justice Nasirul Mulk observed that Hafiz Saeed was not a convicted person and not under detention, but had been in preventive custody since Dec 12, 2008.
The bench noted that no evidence had been provided to prove that Hafiz Saeed was involved in the Mumbai attacks or that he had links with Al Qaeda.
The question is not whether GoI respects the Pakistani SC's verdict or not. The questions are:The Pakistan government honours the Supreme Court's decision upholding the release from house arrest of Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed and Indian authorities should accord 'similar respect to the verdicts of Pakistani courts,' Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Tuesday.
Malik made the remarks while talking to reporters a day after the apex court upheld the Lahore High Court's decision to free Saeed from house arrest and dismissed appeals filed by the federal and Punjab governments challenging his release.
The interior minister said Indian authorities should show the same respect for verdicts of Pakistani courts as that shown by the Pakistan government.
"We had also honoured the Indian court's decision against Ajmal Kasab," Malik said, referring to the death sentence recently awarded by an Indian court to the Pakistani national for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
See here for a chronology of court drama in PakistanPakistan Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a petition filed by LeT commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi seeking acquittal in the Mumbai attacks case after his counsel withdrew the plea.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry said Lakhvi, one of the seven suspects being tried for their involvement in Mumbai attacks, could approach the higher courts after the anti-terrorism court decided the case.
Malik Rab Nawaz Noon, the senior advocate who represented the government, told PTI that the Supreme Court bench did not agree with the contention of Lakhvi’s lawyer that Ajmal Kasab’s confessional statement to Indian authorities had no value in Pakistan courts.
Ajmal Kasab is the lone surviving terrorist of the Mumbai attacks and has been sentenced to death by a Mumbai court.
In his petition, Lakhvi had sought his acquittal in the Mumbai attacks case in a Rawalpindi—based anti—terrorism court and the termination of criminal proceedings against him.
Lakhvi’s counsel had also asked the apex court to bar the anti—terrorism court and the prosecution from using Kasab’s statement against his client because it was recorded by an Indian magistrate.