2611 trial: 'Acquitting Rana will not effect Kasab case'

Mumbai, Jun 10: The verdict of a US court holding Pakistani-Canadian Tahawwur Rana not guilty for the Mumbai terror attacks would not effect the legal proceedings against terrorist Ajmal Kasab and also the charge against LeT that they had masterminded the strikes, special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said here today (June 10).

"However, it pains me to hear how Rana was exonerated from criminal conspiracy of 26/11 terror attack particularly when co-accused David Headley's evidence about complicity of both of them in the conspiracy has been accepted by the court," Nikam told PTI while reacting to the verdict.

Rana was acquitted by a Chicago court on the charges of plotting the Mumbai attacks but was found guilty of supporting LeT and planning a strike in Denmark.

The law of conspiracy in USA, UK, India and Pakistan is very clear to the effect that once a conspiracy is hatched and participants have been involved in that, then it is not necessary that conspirators should do overt acts as conspiracy itself is a punishable offence, said Nikam, who was prosecutor in the Mumbai court which conducted the 26/11 trial.

"When the Chicago Court accepted Headley's evidence that he and Rana had hatched a criminal conspiracy with LeT, then the acquittal of Rana from the 26/11 terror attacks is itself contradictory," Nikam said.

Once the Chicago court accepted the theory of conspiracy about the involvement of Rana and Headley in plotting various terrorist acts then the court ought to have held Rana guilty of 26/11 terror attacks, Nikam said.

PTI