The lawyer for the only surviving suspected gunman of the Mumbai attacks believes defending his Pakistani client in an Indian court poses a “nearly impossible” challenge.
“It’s an uphill task,” said Abbas Kazmi, who maintains that his client, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, may have been brainwashed into carrying out the atrocity.
“It’s going to be a very, very difficult case from the defence point of view because, as we all know, there is overwhelming evidence and any number of witnesses,” Kazmi, 54, told AFP. “It will be nearly impossible for a defence lawyer,” he added.
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I’m preparing my defence to prove that no way it will fall into rarest of rare cases,” he said.
“We have to see what was the reason that led to this brutal killing, (the defendant’s) age and understanding of the matter?:
whether a person carrying out this act was in a proper position to understand his actions.” With the 10 gunmen alleged to have been trained, equipped and financed by the banned, Pakistan-based organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
Public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam has already alleged that the gunmen were the products of an institutionalised “terrorist culture” rampant in Pakistan.
“Religious fanaticism and terrorism is all about some old, wicked person brainwashing youngsters,” said Kazmi. “
Teenagers fall prey to these things {Unfortunately, that is not acceptable as defence. Kasab was not of unsound mind. He fully knew what he was into and willingly lent his support to jihad. He even bragged about that to his villagers. There is a certain prestige associated with a ghazi or a shaheed, especially with the latter, in Pakistan and he enjoyed every moment of his fame},” are filled with hatred and misled, he added.
Like many defence lawyers, Kazmi complained of having fewer resources at his disposal than the prosecution.
“The prosecution started their preparations on November 26” (the first night of the attacks) and have had help compiling the technical evidence from the likes of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and forensic experts, he said. 
{So bl***y what ? Kasab has his defence going back to 2007 when he started training with the LeT. Besides, Kasab has all the answers to all the questions that the prosecutors have to find out very laboriously, methodically and excruciatingly. The entire burden of proving the case is with the prosecution, not the defence.}
In contrast, Kazmi, who represented defendants in the 1993 Mumbai bombings case, was only appointed on April 16 and has just one other lawyer to help him.
Kazmi’s state-appointed predecessor, who herself had only been in the job for just weeks, was dismissed the previous day over a potential conflict of interest.
He has until May 2 to digest the 11,000-page charge sheet and prepare a defence.
Despite the punishing workload, Kazmi said he will still work on up to 30 other cases out of financial necessity, dividing his time between courts and his tiny, a one-room office in central Mumbai. He has yet to learn his fee for representing Kasab, although state legal aid lawyers reportedly earn as little as 900 rupees (18 dollars) for an entire case, irrespective of its length.
. Neither is going to be mighty impressed, on the contrary, such softness and cowardice will only breed contempt.
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