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05-03-2010, 02:40 PM
Pakistani found guilty over Mumbai attacks
(Sebastian D?souza/Mumbai Mirror/AP)
Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab at the Chatrapathi Sivaji Terminal railway station in Mumbai
Image :1 of 2
Rhys Blakely, Mumbai
The sole terrorist gunman to be captured alive during the Mumbai attacks of 2008 was today found guilty of murder and of waging war against India.
The prosecution in the trial of Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab has indicated that it will ask for him to be executed for his part in the most audacious terrorist atrocity since 9/11.
Kasab, 22, a Pakistani citizen, was one of ten Islamist gunmen who sailed from Pakistan to hold India’s commercial capital under virtual siege for 60 hours in November 2008.
The commando-style assault killed 166 people at targets that included two luxury hotels, a backpacker bar and a Jewish prayer centre. Kasab is said to have helped conduct the atrocity's bloodiest episode: the slaughter of 58 people at Mumbai’s main train station.
Related Links
* Verdict to be returned on alleged Mumbai gunman
* Mumbai terror lawyer killed in 'professional hit'
* 'Baby-faced' Mumbai gunman retracts confession
“If Kasab is found guilty on Monday I will ask for the maximum penalty on Tuesday,” Ujjwal Nikam, the state prosecutor, told The Times last week.
Sentencing will begin tomorrow. A death sentence is likely to lead to a lengthy series of appeals and an indeterminate wait on death row.
The last execution in India was in 2004, when a security guard was hanged in Calcutta for the rape and murder of a schoolgirl 14 years earlier. Since then the last trained hangman in India is understood to have retired, leaving the country with no executioners.
"I, my family and people of India want Kasab hanged," said Vaishali Ombale, whose father was killed by the terrorist.
But even the swiftest of executions would fail to satisfy many Indians' sense of justice. “No one is going to feel that justice has been done when Kasab is found guilty,” said Kartikeya Tripathi, a court reporter for the Times of India who has tracked the trial.
“He is only a footsoldier. India has not been able to touch the masterminds behind the Mumbai attacks.”
The Indian Government believes that Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based terrorist faction, was behind the strike on Mumbai. The charge sheet against Kasab also lists 35 suspects wanted for their alleged links to the Mumbai attacks. All are thought to be in Pakistan and to be linked to LeT.
No 1 on the list is the LeT founder Hafiz Saeed.
Mr Saeed — who claims that he quit LeT in 2002 and denies any links to terrorism — was briefly placed under house arrest in Pakistan, but was released last June. Pakistan also announced a crackdown on Jamaat-ud-Dawa, thought to be a front for LeT, in December 2008.
Pakistan has also placed seven men on trial for the Mumbai attacks, including several high-ranking LeT commanders. The move has not satisfied many in India, whose tense relationship with Pakistan was seriously damaged by the Mumbai attacks.
Today, however, all eyes were on Kasab, a poor high-school drop-out who drifted into radicalism from a life of petty crime and whose behaviour has become increasingly odd as his trial has progressed.
Today, he appeared pale and shaky as he sat in the dock. He showed no emotion throughout the judge’s reading of a précis of the verdict against him, the full version of which runs to more than 1,500 pages.
His sullen demeanour was in sharp contrast to his cockiness when he first appeared in court a year ago. Then, Kasab made a show of grinning at the packed press gallery in his specially bomb-proofed courtroom.
He claimed to be a child ineligible for trial in an adult court, pleaded innocent and accused the police of beating a confession out of him. Three months later, taking his defence lawyer by surprise, he confessed to taking part in the most audacious terror attack since 9/11 and said that he was “ready to hang”.
In December he retracted a confession that had included a detailed account of his indoctrination and weapons training. Instead he claimed to be a wannabe film star who had been in Mumbai hoping to break into Bollywood when he was arrested and framed.
The judge today dismissed that version of events as false.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7114808.ece
(Sebastian D?souza/Mumbai Mirror/AP)
Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab at the Chatrapathi Sivaji Terminal railway station in Mumbai
Image :1 of 2
Rhys Blakely, Mumbai
The sole terrorist gunman to be captured alive during the Mumbai attacks of 2008 was today found guilty of murder and of waging war against India.
The prosecution in the trial of Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab has indicated that it will ask for him to be executed for his part in the most audacious terrorist atrocity since 9/11.
Kasab, 22, a Pakistani citizen, was one of ten Islamist gunmen who sailed from Pakistan to hold India’s commercial capital under virtual siege for 60 hours in November 2008.
The commando-style assault killed 166 people at targets that included two luxury hotels, a backpacker bar and a Jewish prayer centre. Kasab is said to have helped conduct the atrocity's bloodiest episode: the slaughter of 58 people at Mumbai’s main train station.
Related Links
* Verdict to be returned on alleged Mumbai gunman
* Mumbai terror lawyer killed in 'professional hit'
* 'Baby-faced' Mumbai gunman retracts confession
“If Kasab is found guilty on Monday I will ask for the maximum penalty on Tuesday,” Ujjwal Nikam, the state prosecutor, told The Times last week.
Sentencing will begin tomorrow. A death sentence is likely to lead to a lengthy series of appeals and an indeterminate wait on death row.
The last execution in India was in 2004, when a security guard was hanged in Calcutta for the rape and murder of a schoolgirl 14 years earlier. Since then the last trained hangman in India is understood to have retired, leaving the country with no executioners.
"I, my family and people of India want Kasab hanged," said Vaishali Ombale, whose father was killed by the terrorist.
But even the swiftest of executions would fail to satisfy many Indians' sense of justice. “No one is going to feel that justice has been done when Kasab is found guilty,” said Kartikeya Tripathi, a court reporter for the Times of India who has tracked the trial.
“He is only a footsoldier. India has not been able to touch the masterminds behind the Mumbai attacks.”
The Indian Government believes that Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based terrorist faction, was behind the strike on Mumbai. The charge sheet against Kasab also lists 35 suspects wanted for their alleged links to the Mumbai attacks. All are thought to be in Pakistan and to be linked to LeT.
No 1 on the list is the LeT founder Hafiz Saeed.
Mr Saeed — who claims that he quit LeT in 2002 and denies any links to terrorism — was briefly placed under house arrest in Pakistan, but was released last June. Pakistan also announced a crackdown on Jamaat-ud-Dawa, thought to be a front for LeT, in December 2008.
Pakistan has also placed seven men on trial for the Mumbai attacks, including several high-ranking LeT commanders. The move has not satisfied many in India, whose tense relationship with Pakistan was seriously damaged by the Mumbai attacks.
Today, however, all eyes were on Kasab, a poor high-school drop-out who drifted into radicalism from a life of petty crime and whose behaviour has become increasingly odd as his trial has progressed.
Today, he appeared pale and shaky as he sat in the dock. He showed no emotion throughout the judge’s reading of a précis of the verdict against him, the full version of which runs to more than 1,500 pages.
His sullen demeanour was in sharp contrast to his cockiness when he first appeared in court a year ago. Then, Kasab made a show of grinning at the packed press gallery in his specially bomb-proofed courtroom.
He claimed to be a child ineligible for trial in an adult court, pleaded innocent and accused the police of beating a confession out of him. Three months later, taking his defence lawyer by surprise, he confessed to taking part in the most audacious terror attack since 9/11 and said that he was “ready to hang”.
In December he retracted a confession that had included a detailed account of his indoctrination and weapons training. Instead he claimed to be a wannabe film star who had been in Mumbai hoping to break into Bollywood when he was arrested and framed.
The judge today dismissed that version of events as false.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7114808.ece