Judicial commission delays prosecution visit to India

Prosecution will ask Indian authorities to chalk out a new schedule.

RAWALPINDI:

Having delayed plans to visit India, the prosecution in the 2008 Mumbai attacks case will ask Indian authorities to chalk out a new schedule for the proposed judicial commission to record the statement of Ajmal Kasab and other witnesses in India.

Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Special Public Prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali on Tuesday informed a trial judge that they will ask Indian authorities to give new timetable for the 10-member commission’s visit citing the death of one of the defence lawyers.

Hearing the trial at Adiala Jail, Anti-Terrorism Court-I Special Judge Shahid Rafique deferred the proceedings till February 11 after former Punjab advocate general Khawaja Haris sought time to attend the Chehlum of his deceased father Khawaja Sultan Ahmed on February 12 before proceeding to India with the commission.

“I also submitted my travel documents in the court today to join the panel whenever it embarks on a visit to India,” Harris told AFP.

Harris – who is the counsel for alleged mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi – further withdrew three different applications after the FIA prosecutor assured him that all documents used against the arrested men as evidence would be provided to the defence lawyers. Earlier the judicial commission was scheduled to reach Mumbai on February 1 and had to complete its investigation by February 10.

The commission headed by an Indian magistrate is to record the confessional statement of Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving gunman of the attack, and other witnesses including the police officers, doctors and other officials connected with the carnage which killed 166 people.

In Pakistan seven alleged perpetrators including Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Hammad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jamil Riaz, Younas Anjum, Jamil Ahmed, Mazhar Iqbal and Abdul Majid have been facing trial since early 2009.

The case was initiated on the information contained in a confessional statement of Kasab but a Rawalpindi court had ruled that the confessional statement recorded in India could not be used as a piece of evidence in Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 8^th, 2012.