Legal loopholes saw Zakiur Lakhvi getting bail, says Pak court

Islamabad, Dec 27: The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) here said in a written order that legal loopholes in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks case resulted in the granting of bail to Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, one of the alleged mastermind of the attacks that saw death of 166 people, including foreign nationals, the Dawn reported.

According to the ATC order, weak evidence, registration of an FIR invoking irrelevant sections against the suspect, the dragging of the trial and the hearsay proof worked in Lakhvi's favour, the Dawn report added. [When Lakhvi fathered a child in jail]

Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Lakhvi was arrested by the Federal Investigation Agency in early 2009 on the basis of the confession made by lone surviving attacker of 26/11 Ajmal Kasab and detained at the Adiala Jail. Kasab was hanged by the Indian authorities in November 2012. [Taliban derive deranged pleasure in killing children]

According to the chargesheet issued in November 2009, Lakhvi was the mastermind of the 26/11 attacks. He was also accused of training 10 terrorists who executed the attacks in Mumbai, India's commercial capital, over three days.

The ATC gave bail to Lakhvi on December 18, two days after 132 children were massacred in an army school in Peshawar and a day after Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, another brain behind the 26/11 attacks, blamed India for the massacre and threatened to take revenge.

Oneindia News