Ajit Karn
A US court has approved the extradition of Tahawwur Rana, a Chicago businessman wanted in India for his involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack.
Rana was found guilty in 2011 of supporting an Islamic militant group accused for the 166-person attack on India’s financial capital.
However, he was exonerated of the more severe charge of plotting the attack.
The businessman was detained in 2020 after India requested his extradition.
Rana, who denied all allegations against him, contested India’s extradition request, which was backed by the United States government.
Monday, however, a court authorized his extradition. According to the extradition treaty between the United States and India, Rana was charged in India with criminal conspiracy, committing terrorist acts, and homicide, all of which are extraditable offenses.
It added, however, that Rana will remain in US custody until the Indian Secretary of State makes a definitive decision regarding his extradition.
In November 2008, ten men stormed a train station, hotels, cafes, and a Jewish center while shooting and hurling bombs, killing more than 160 people.
Canadian-born Pakistani Rana was accused by Indian authorities of conspiring with his childhood friend David Coleman Headley to aid the militant organization Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which was blamed for the attack.
The US jury has reached a verdict in the Mumbai terror case
The officer who escaped execution during the Mumbai attacks.
In 2006, Rana allegedly permitted Headley to establish an office of his Chicago-based immigration services firm in Mumbai, which Headley used to scout potential attack sites for the 2008 attack.
Rana was also accused of allowing Headley to impersonate a representative of his company in order to gain access to newspaper offices by pretending to be interested in purchasing advertising space.
Headley, who is serving a 35-year sentence for his role in the assaults in the United States, testified against Rana in 2011.
At the time, Rana’s defense team claimed that Headley, an old friend from their days in Pakistani military academy, manipulated and misled him.
In 2011, Chicago federal court jurors convicted Rana of providing support to LeT and for his participation in an unsuccessful plot against a Danish newspaper. However, he was exonerated of any direct involvement in the Mumbai atrocities.
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He was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2013. In 2020, Rana was released from prison on compassionate grounds in the United States after testing positive for Covid-19.
