Agencies/Mumbai
Two judges will announce later this month whether the sole surviving gunman from the Mumbai attacks will have his death sentence confirmed, one of his lawyers said yesterday.
“Judgment has been posted for February 21,” Farhana Shah said after an administrative hearing in the appeal of Mohamed Ajmal Kasab at the Bombay High Court.
Judges Ranjana Desai and R V More had been expected to give their decision yesterday on whether to back the death sentence for the Pakistani national over his part in the November 2008 attacks that killed 166 people.
They blamed the mass of paperwork in the high-profile case for the delay.
“The court said it required two more weeks to compile voluminous documents in the case,” state prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said.
Under Indian law, death sentences have to be confirmed by the state high court. The judges can uphold the sentence, reduce it, order a retrial or overturn the conviction, said Shah.
If the death sentence is upheld, there is a further right of appeal to the Supreme Court in New Delhi and as a last resort to India’s president.
Kasab’s lawyers have asked for a retrial, arguing that his trial lawyer was not given sufficient time to wade through the 11,000-page charge-sheet before the case began. They also said evidence and witnesses were manipulated.
Because of security concerns, Kasab was made to appear before the judges through videoconference from the Arthur Road jail.
At one of the initial hearings, Kasab became agitated and attempted to spit at the camera. Refusing to accept the death sentence, Kasab also demanded that he should be sent to the US.
Kasab, 23, was convicted in May last year of waging war against India, murder, attempted murder and terrorism offences after he and an accomplice opened fire on and threw grenades at commuters at Mumbai’s main railway station.
A total of 52 people were killed in what was the bloodiest episode in the wave of attacks that also included three luxury hotels, a popular tourist restaurant and a Jewish centre.
A decision is also expected at the hearing in two weeks’ time on a prosecution appeal against the acquittal of Kasab’s two Indian co-defendants, who were accused of making maps of potential targets for the attackers.
The trial judge rejected the prosecution evidence against them as flimsy.
India blames the banned, Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group for masterminding the attacks, which led to the suspension of fragile peace talks between the neighbours.
But on Sunday, the two countries agreed to “carry forward” talks aimed at resuming the full-fledged peace dialogue.
Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistan counterpart Salman Bashir held talks late Sunday in the Bhutanese capital Thimphu - the first high-level meeting between the neighbours since July.
“They agreed on the need for a constructive dialogue between India and Pakistan to resolve all outstanding issues,” according to a joint statement that described the discussions as “useful and frank.”
“They affirmed the need to carry forward the dialogue process,” the statement said.
The meeting failed to produce a date for an expected visit to India this year by Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who last held talks with his Indian counterpart S M Krishna in Islamabad in July.
The talks in Thimphu took place on the sidelines of a South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (Saarc) conference.
