Kasab Retracts Confession

MUMBAI, India -- The accused gunman in last year's bloody siege of Mumbai retracted his detailed confession Friday, saying police tortured him into admitting his role in the attacks that left 166 people dead.

Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, 21, who is being tried in a special court and was photographed carrying an assault rifle during the attack on Mumbai's main train station, told the judge he came to Mumbai as a tourist and was arrested 20 days before the siege began.

On the day the attacks started, Mr. Kasab said, police took him from his cell because he resembled one of the gunmen, shot him to make it look like he had been involved in the violence and re-arrested him.

Friday's statement was not the first reversal from Mr. Kasab.

In February, he told a judge he wanted to attack India in order to free the divided region of Kashmir where Muslim militants are fighting for independence. He later recanted that statement, saying it was obtained under duress.

It was unclear what impact Mr. Kasab's statement would have on the case, and the prosecution brushed it off.

"All the while, I expected that Mr. Kasab was about to take a U-turn in the case," said Ujjwal Nikam, the prosecutor. "He is a military-trained commando. It's not going to affect our case."

In July, Mr. Kasab, who could face the death penalty if convicted, surprised the court when he suddenly confessed, saying he would rather be hanged in this world than face "God's punishment" in the next.

In his confession, he spoke of spraying gunfire into the crowd at the train station and described in detail a network of training camps and safe houses across Pakistan, revealing the names of four men he said were his handlers.

The photo of Kasab casually walking through the station with his rifle has become the enduring image of the attacks.

But Kasab said police tortured him into falsely confessing.

The assault 13 months ago lasted nearly three days and paralyzed India's commercial hub. During the attacks, 10 young men armed with assault rifles stormed two luxury hotels, a Jewish center and the train station. Nine of the gunmen were killed, leaving only Mr. Kasab, who was wounded in a shootout with police, authorities said.

He told the court Friday he was initially arrested last year after wandering around Mumbai late at night looking for a place to stay, and his Pakistani citizenship aroused suspicion.

After he was re-arrested for the Mumbai attack, he said, four white men came to visit him in jail, including David Coleman Headley, who is jailed in Chicago on charges he conspired in the siege. The judge then told Mr. Kasab not to reveal any more details on Headley.

Mr. Headley, the 49-year-old son of an American mother and Pakistani father, is also charged with planning to attack a Danish newspaper.

WSJ

Mumbai's 'baby-faced killer' trial nears end

THE prosecution case against the only accused Mumbai gunman to be captured alive will close today, one year after the attacks, bringing him a step closer to a possible death sentence.

Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, 21, who allegedly opened fire on commuters at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai's main railway station, has admitted to a high-security court that he was one of ten men who killed 166 people in a commando-style assault on India's financial capital a year ago.

To Indian eyes, however, justice will only be served when those behind the attack are brought to trial - something that they say would require more action by Pakistan, which is accused of sheltering them.

Mr Kasab, a Pakistani national, is accused of being a footsoldier for the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group. He is charged with murder and waging war on India - crimes that carry the death penalty.

However, Ujjwal Nikam, the special public prosecutor in the case, said yesterday that Mr Kasab was merely "one of the instruments" used by LeT in the attack.

"He and his associates were a small part of LeT, which wanted to inflict serious damage to India by attacking its commercial capital," he said.

Mr Nikam told The Times that Hafiz Saeed, who founded LeT, would have to be handed over to India to bring a sense of closure in the hunt for those he believes were responsible. Mr Saeed, who now heads Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an Islamic charity widely seen as a front for LeT, is one of 20 alleged terrorists that India has demanded should be transferred from Pakistan.

But Pakistan has so far declined. MrSaeed - who says he left LeT in 2002 and denies any links to terrorism - was placed under house arrest in Pakistan, but released in June. The country announced a campaign against Jamaat-ud-Dawa last December, but reports suggest that the organisation is still operating.

In Islamabad, seven men have been put on trial, including Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, allegedly one of those behind the Mumbai attacks, and Zarar Shah, who is accused of being an important LeT operative. Yesterday (Wednesday), it was announced that all seven had been indicted under anti-terrorism laws and had pleaded not guilty.

Indian officials remain sceptical about the hearings in Pakistan, which are not being held in public. The proceedings had earlier appeared to have stalled after the original judge resigned from the case, claiming that his life had been threatened. "The trial is being held in camera. How can we know anything about its progress?" Mr Nikam asked The Times.

Mr Kasab's trial, which began in April, is expected to last for about another month. However, legal experts say that even if he is sentenced to be hanged, it is likely to be at least five years before he exhausts his rights to appeal and mercy petitions.

Only then could he be sent to the gallows, a rare punishment in India.

When Mr Kasab first appeared in court he often smiled widely during the proceedings. Since then, his mood appears to have changed. In recent hearings, the "baby-faced gunman" - as he became known from widely viewed CCTV footage of him wielding an AK47 during the attacks - has complained that his food has been poisoned, and of being ill. Earlier he had claimed to be a minor; demanded a change from his vegetarian diet, and accused the police of beating a confession out of him.

Convicts in previous terror trials in India have avoided the gallows for years. Mohammad Afzal, a member of the Jaish-e-Mohammed group, who launched a deadly commando raid on the Indian Parliament in 2001, remains on death row.

Nalini Murugan, found guilty of the murder of Rajiv Gandhi by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber in 1991, had her death sentence commuted to life imprisonment after Sonia Gandhi, his widow and now leader of the ruling Congress party, intervened.

The Australian

Arrests in Italy over Mumbai attack

Italian police say they have arrested two Pakistani men accused of providing logistical support for last year's deadly attacks in Mumbai.

The two, father and son, were detained during an early-morning raid in Brescia, police in the northern Italian city said on Saturday.

The suspects managed a money-transfer agency and helped fund the November 26 attacks, police said in a statement.

The day before the attacks, they transferred money to activate an internet phone account that was used by the attackers and their accomplices, Stefano Fonzi, the head of anti-terror police in Brescia, said.

The attacks in India's economic capital killed at least 166 people and left another 300 injured.

Ten men are believed to have carried out the 60-hour assault.

New Delhi and Washington blamed the siege on Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned Pakistan armed group.

Italian police began the investigation in December after being alerted by the FBI that the money had been sent from Italy, Fonzi told The Associated Press news agency.

The funds were transferred under the identity of another Pakistani man who had never been in Italy and was not involved in the alleged crimes, he said.

The two are accused of aiding and abetting international terrorism as well as illegal financial activity.

Transferring funds using the identity of other people was a common practice at the Brescia agency, Fonzi said in a telephone interview.

Two more Pakistanis were arrested in Saturday's raids for allegedly committing fraud and other crimes using the same system, but they were not linked to the Mumbai attacks.

A fifth Pakistani man escaped arrest and was still being sought.

India has repeatedly called on Islamabad to charge the founder of Lashkar, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, with masterminding the Mumbai attacks.

New Delhi has been demanding action against Saeed and other Pakistan-based fighters before it will resume a formal peace process.

Pakistani police announced in September that Saeed would be arrested for propagating jihad and collecting funds for a charity he heads.

Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving suspect, told a court in Mumbai in July that he was one of the attackers.

He gave details of his group's journey from Pakistan on a boat, their subsequent landing in Mumbai, and the rampage that followed as they shot and killed people at a railway station, a Jewish centre and two five-star hotels, including the iconic Taj Mahal.

Al Jazeera

Sixty Hours of Terror

I. Ten Gunmen, Ten Minutes

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) hummed with the foot traffic of late commuters. Under hulking steel rafters, held over from the British colonial era, the PA announcer issued final calls for departing suburban trains as they lurched away one after the next, packed with passengers.

Long-distance travelers, mostly the poor North Indian migrants who flock to the city by the tens of thousands, took up benches and spots on the concrete floor, resting on sheets of newsprint with their piles of luggage.

Fongen Fernandes, the spry fifty-three-year-old manager of the upper level of the Re-Fresh snack bar with its tall glass panels overlooking the platforms, was talking to a graphic designer.

Fernandes stood admiring the designer’s digital handiwork on a laptop open at a table in the far corner of the restaurant, when he felt sand-like debris sprinkle the top of his head. “What’s this?” he said to himself. He wiped his smooth pate a couple times and continued talking, unaware that below two young men had emerged from a bathroom abutting Platform 13 and begun spraying the crowd with gunfire, unaware that a high-velocity bullet shot from less than thirty yards away had missed him by inches and lodged in the wall over his shoulder.

He bid the designer farewell and was halfway down the stairs when another series of rounds cracked against the wall and showered sparks into the air. A grenade exploded on the platform.

Rattled by the sudden chaos, Fernandes scrambled back upstairs, cut the lights, and ducked behind some advertising placards that were pasted to the base of the snack bar windows. He instructed everyone to slide belly-down and hide behind a bank of metal food warmers.

One woman started to scream. He motioned for her to shut up. When she wouldn’t, Fernandes threw his handkerchief to a waiter who held it to her mouth. “Don’t let go of her,” he said.

Fernandes stole a look at the scene below. Bodies lay scattered on the station floor, slicked in blood. The gunmen scanned and swiveled. They shot from the hip, in steady bursts. The shorter, stocky one, Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, wore beige cargo pants and a blue t-shirt with VERSACE printed in white on the chest; the other, Ismail Khan, was slimmer and wore all black.

Both carried rucksacks. On any other day, Fernandes would have taken them for college boys on their way home. These were no students, though. The ease with which they wielded their weapons amid the panic betrayed a professional’s mien.

Two more volleys lashed into the snack bar. One hit Mukesh Aggarwal, a co-worker in charge of the ground level, in the stomach. Fernandes, a devout Catholic, started to pray in the dark. “St. Anthony, please deliver us . . .”

9:40 P.M. Leopold Café.

Two young men—one named Abu Shoaib, the other known simply as Nazir—got out of a yellow and black city cab across the street from the Leopold Café. Open since 1871 in the heart of the Colaba district, the multi-level dive was packed with more than a hundred people enjoying western food and cheap pints of Kingfisher beer to the din of rock music that spilled onto the sidewalk, where hawkers plied t-shirts and offered hash to foreign backpackers.

Co-owner Farhang Jehani stepped out to take a phone call. He watched the pair of young men pay the cab fare and wait by the curb, bags slung over their shoulders. Driver Fulchand Bhind was grateful for the extravagant tip the young men had given.

Unbeknownst to him, the two men had slipped a bomb, set to go off in one hour, under his seat. As Bhind pulled away, the bomb clicked silently toward detonation. How could he have known? These young men certainly didn’t look like terrorists. Jehani, across the street, assumed they were students waiting for friends.

When his call was finished, he went inside and around to the back staircase that leads to the mezzanine-level bar to watch the cricket match. India was playing England, and they were winning. Jehani’s family is part of Mumbai’s long-established Parsi community, émigrés from Iran who practice the Zoroastrian faith, but like any lifelong Indian, he is passionate about cricket.

Read it all at VQR Online

H/T: David F.

Mumbai: From the crime to the court

The attacks began on November 26, 2008, when 10 terrorists, members of a militant Islamic group called Lashkar-e-Taiba, arrived in Mumbai by boat.

Their targets included a train station, Nariman House, Leopold Café and two hotels — the Oberoi-Trident and Taj Mahal (above).

For nearly three days, they exchanged fire with Indian forces; 166 people were killed.

The authorities shot nine of the gunmen, and one survivor, Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, 21, was captured.

The attacks heightened Indo-Pakistani tensions; Pakistan only accepted that Kasab was a Pakistani national in January this year.

The trial began in April in Mumbai. Kasab pleaded not guilty to 86 charges including murder and waging war against India, and was said to smirk throughout.

In July he shocked the court by pleading guilty to some charges. “Very shrewdly, very cleverly, Kasab has tried to save his own skin by showing he was acting as a subordinate,” said the state prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam.

Last month, Kasab claimed he had no faith in the Indian courts and applied for trial in the International Court of Justice. The request was dismissed and the trial continues.

Dozens of Brits were injured in the attacks — seven seriously — and one man, 73-year-old Andreas Liveras, was killed.

Source: Times Online

Spotlight on Pakistani terror suspect's trial

Correspondents in Mumbai | April 13

THE trial of the lone Islamist militant suspect captured by police during the Mumbai attacks is due to start on Wednesday, amid tight security and under close international scrutiny.

Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman, also known as Kasab, is to make his first public appearance since being arrested on November 26, soon after 10 gunmen began an assault that left more than 160 dead and more than 300 others injured.

The 21-year-old Pakistani national, said to belong to the banned Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Toiba, faces charges including "waging war" against India, murder, attempted murder and kidnapping. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

The trial is being held before a single judge without a jury at a special court in Mumbai's Arthur Road jail because of the same security fears that led to all previous hearings being held by video-link or behind closed doors.

Proceedings have been delayed while workers reinforced the structure and reportedly built a bomb-proof tunnel from Iman's cell after he received death threats.

There was also uncertainty about whether he would even be represented in court after the home of his state-appointed lawyer, Anjali Waghmare, was attacked by irate Hindu radicals and she was denounced for taking on the case. She has since been given the highest level of police protection.

Iman, the nine dead gunmen and 35 other LET "terrorists" sought in connection with the attacks are said to have carried out a "heinous criminal conspiracy" against the city and people of Mumbai and India, according to the charge sheet.

Two other men are also on trial, Indian nationals Fahim Ansari, 35, and Sabauddin Ahmed, 24, who are said to have provided the group with invaluable logistical support before the attacks.

Iman was arrested as he and an accomplice tried to flee after planting a bomb in a taxi.

Meenakshi Ganguly, from Human Rights Watch in Mumbai, said since 26 foreigners had been killed in the attacks, the case was assured of international attention.

HRW has already expressed concern about the delay in Iman getting legal representation and over calls, including from some senior lawyers, that no Indian counsel should agree to defend him.

"The fair-trial issue is the most important thing," Mr Ganguly told Agence France-Presse.

"It's important to understand that there are reasons why the law exists and the law is followed."

Prosecutors say they have ample evidence that "undoubtedly and conclusively" links the attacks to Pakistan, including mobile and satellite phone communication between the gunmen and their LET "handlers".

Iman's DNA and fingerprints were found on items retrieved from the hijacked Indian fishing trawler the gunmen used to get to the Mumbai coast, according to a version of the charge sheet released in February.

Police and security experts say Iman was ripe for recruitment by Islamist militants. "He fits the profile if you look at the terrorists recruited by Lashkar-e-Toiba," said Wilson John, senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi and a specialist in extremist groups.

Source: The Australian