Mumbai attack case: Court not to declare Kasab proclaimed offender

Prosecutor says he will appeal decision in LHC.

RAWALPINDI:

A trial court has dismissed the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) plea that Ajmal Kasab be declared a proclaimed offender in the 2008 Mumbai attack case, so that the trial of the seven suspects arrested in Pakistan can go ahead.

During in-camera proceedings in Adiala Jail on Saturday, Special Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Judge Rana Nasir Ahmed rejected the FIA application, observing that Kasab had already been convicted in India. He was not deliberately avoiding appearing in the ATC, so he could not be declared a proclaimed offender, he observed.

Public Prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar told reporters outside Adiala Jail that the FIA would appeal the decision at the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) Rawalpindi Bench.

Earlier, he asked the judge to declare Kasab a proclaimed offender and allow proceedings against him under Section 512 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, under which evidence against a defendant can be recorded in his absence. He said the trial court had issued non-bailable arrest warrants for Kasab in April 2010 but he was yet to appear before the court. He said once the court declared him a proclaimed offender, the government could initiate proceedings against seven other suspects, including Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged the mastermind of the Mumbai attack.

Defence plea

The court did not rule on an application filed by the defence counsel because he did not attend proceedings and adjourned the matter till April 9. Advocate Khawaja Sultan Ahmed had asked the court not to allow the trial of the seven suspects arrested on information provided by Kasab in India.

The FIA had already filed a petition in April last year with the LHC Rawalpindi Bench after the anti-terrorism court refused to declare Kasab and Faheem Ansari proclaimed offenders. The LHC division bench had directed the FIA to go back to the trial court with the plea.

Lakhvi, Hammad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jamil Riaz, Younas Anjum, Jamil Ahmed, Mazhar Iqbal and Abdul Majid, alleged activists of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, are the seven suspects who were arrested in Pakistan.

Published in the Express Tribune, March 27^th, 2011.