The U.S. government has asked the Supreme Court to reject a plea by 26/11 accused Tahawwur Rana, who has appealed a lower court ruling allowing his extradition to India. Reports say Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar has written to the apex court urging that Rana’s petition be dismissed.
Rana is a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin and has already gone through the rounds of lower courts, desperate to avoid extradition to India. The plea before the U.S. Supreme Court is the final legal bid.
Rana’s Plea
He claims that he’s been tried and cleared by a lower court on the charge of involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack. The petition says “India now seeks to extradite him for trial on charges based on the identical case …”
But Prelogar contends that the charges are not identical. India’s forgery charges against Rana, where he used false information to try and open an Immigration Law Centre in India, was submitted to the Reserve Bank.
India was hopeful that Rana could be in India by the second week of December but that seems unlikely given the US Supreme Court ruling could take time.
Rana’s Links
Rana was acquitted by a U.S. court of abetting the 26/11 attacks, but was convicted of giving material support to the Lashkar-e-Toiba, a known terrorist organisation, and helping a terror plot in Denmark.
One of the key men in the terror strike, David Coleman Headley, has even testified against Rana, saying he was in contact with terrorist groups and their leaders in Pakistan.
Rana is also accused of having links with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the army-dominated agency accused of recruiting, training and planning terror strikes in India
Reports said Indian investigative agencies and legal experts met their counterparts in the US embassy in Delhi in October, to take stock of what needed to be done when Rana reached this country.
