A US court recently ruled that Tahawwur Rana, wanted for 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, may be extradited to India.
New Delhi: The government is in touch with President Joe Biden’s administration in Washington DC for early extradition of Tahawwur Rana from the United States, where a court has ruled that the Pakistani-Canadian businessman can be sent to India to stand trial for his role in the November 26-28, 2008, carnage in Mumbai.
New Delhi expects that Rana, the key accomplice of the 26/11 plotter David Headley, will be extradited to India when he exhausts all his legal options, sources told the Deccan Herald newspaper.
The California-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower federal court verdict permitting Rana's extradition and ruled that the 1997 extradition treaty between India and the US covered his alleged offenses. A three-panel appeals court bench heard the habeas corpus petition against the Central California District Court judgment allowing Rana's extradition.
Judge Milan Smith, who wrote the opinion for the bench, said “India provided sufficient competent evidence” to support the initial order of a magistrate judge’s “finding of probable cause that Rana committed the charged crimes” to allow the extradition. He also noted in the judgment that “Rana commended the terrorists who carried out the attacks and stated that the people of India ‘deserved it’."
Rana's only legal recourse now against extradition is to appeal in the Supreme Court where the chances of even getting a hearing are slim. According to the Justice Department, the Supreme Court hears less than one per cent of the appeals it receives.
