26/11 Mumbai attack accused reaches India after extradition from US

A Pakistan-born Chicago businessman wished in India for his function within the 2008 terror assaults in Mumbai metropolis has been delivered to the nation after being extradited from the US.

Tahawwur Rana, a Canadian citizen, landed in Delhi on Thursday. India’s Nationwide Investigation Company confirmed his extradition had been profitable.

In 2011, a US court docket cleared him of a direct function in serving to plot the assaults that killed 166 individuals, however convicted him for supporting a militant group blamed for the assaults.

Sentenced to 14 years in jail in 2013, the 64-year-old was launched in 2020 on well being grounds however was re-arrested later that 12 months after India’s extradition request.

A US court docket approved Rana’s extradition in 2023 however he remained in custody pending a closing approval by the nation’s authorities.

In February, President Donald Trump approved the extradition after his assembly with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The US Supreme Courtroom then rejected Rana’s appeals in opposition to the choice.

The extradition came about below the India-US Extradition Treaty signed by the 2 international locations in 1997.

Rana grew up in Pakistan and studied drugs earlier than becoming a member of the Pakistani military’s medical corps. He and his spouse, additionally a physician, grew to become Canadian residents in 2001.

They later moved to Chicago, the place Rana ran a number of companies, together with an immigration and journey company.

Indian authorities accused Rana of conspiring together with his childhood good friend David Coleman Headley to help Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which was blamed for the Mumbai assaults.

A bunch of 10 militants stormed a prepare station, resorts, cafes and a Jewish centre in Mumbai, capturing and throwing bombs. Each India and the US designated LeT as a terrorist organisation.

US prosecutors within the case stated that in 2006, Rana allowed Headley to open an workplace of his Chicago-based immigration companies agency in Mumbai, which Headley then used as cowl to scout websites for the 2008 assaults.

Rana was additionally accused of permitting Headley to pose as a consultant of his agency so as to achieve entry to newspaper places of work by feigning curiosity in buying promoting house.

Headley – who pleaded responsible to figuring out places for the Mumbai assaults – was a key prosecution witness. He stated he had hyperlinks to LeT and to the Pakistani intelligence service ISI. Pakistan has repeatedly denied any such hyperlinks. Headley additionally testified in opposition to Rana.

Rana’s defence crew on the time stated he was manipulated and misled by Headley, an outdated good friend from their days in a Pakistani navy college.

In 2011, jurors on the federal court docket in Chicago convicted Rana for offering assist to LeT and for his function in an aborted plot in opposition to a Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten. However he was cleared of the extra critical cost of serving to plot the Mumbai assaults and obtained a 14-year jail time period.

Headley was given a 35-year sentence for his function within the assaults. He’s lodged in a federal jail in Chicago.

In India, Rana and Headley had been tried in absentia in a Mumbai court docket for his or her alleged involvement within the assaults. Headley later turned approver within the case.

The costs introduced in opposition to Rana by India’s Nationwide Investigation Company embody legal conspiracy, waging battle in opposition to the Indian authorities and terrorism.

In his plea in opposition to being extradited to India within the decrease court docket within the US, Rana had argued that India supposed to prosecute him for a similar offences for which he had been acquitted by the US court docket.

His plea was rejected, with the court docket saying the Indian prices had been distinct from these he had been prosecuted for within the US.

In his attraction within the US Supreme Courtroom to remain his extradition, Rana stated it could violate US regulation and the United Nations Conference Towards Torture “as a result of there are substantial grounds for believing that, if extradited to India, petitioner will probably be in peril of being subjected to torture”.

“The probability of torture on this case is even greater although as petitioner faces acute threat as a Muslim of Pakistani origin charged within the Mumbai assaults,” the applying said.

It additionally cited Rana’s underlying well being circumstances and issues concerning the therapy he would obtain in Indian jail. His plea was rejected.

Ujjwal Nikam, the previous public prosecutor within the case in Mumbai, informed ANI information company that Rana’s extradition would assist reveal extra about “the involvement of Pakistan’s safety equipment” within the assaults.