US Clears Mumbai Attack Convict Tahawwur Rana's Extradition To India (X image @Sanju_Verma_)
United States Supreme Court has cleared Mumbai attack convict Tahawwur Rana’s extradition to India, dismissing his review petition against the move. New Delhi is seeking Rana in connection with the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack.
It was Rana’s last call in having a legal chance seeking not to be extradited to India. He lost legal battles in several legal federal courts including the US Court of Appeals for the North Circuit in San Francisco. He is currently detained in the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Los Angeles.
In last November, Rana filed a “petition for a writ of certiorari” before the US Supreme Court. This was denied by the top court on January 21, a day after Donald Trump took up the office as 47th President of America.
“Petition DENIED”, said the Supreme Court.
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US government had argued in the court that the petition for a writ of certiorari should be denied. US Solicitor General Elizabeth B Prelogar said this in its filing before the Supreme Court on December 16. Prelogar said that Rana was not entitled to relief from extradition to India in this case.
While in his ‘petitions for a writ of certiorari to review the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Rana had argued that he was tried and acquitted in federal court in the Northern District of Illinois (Chicago) on charges relating to the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai. Prelogar disagreed.
“India now seeks to extradite him for trial on charges based on the identical conduct at issue in the Chicago case”, it said.
“The government does not concede that all of the conduct on which India seeks extradition was covered by the government’s prosecution in this case. For example, India’s forgery charges are based in part on conduct that was not charged in the United States: petitioner’s use of false information in an application to formally open a branch office of the Immigration Law Center submitted to the Reserve Bank of India”, Prelogar added.
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“It is not clear that the jury’s verdict in this case- which involves conspiracy charges and was somewhat difficult to parse – means that he has been “convicted or acquitted” on all of the specific conduct that India has charged”, the US Solicitor General further added.
Rana, a Pakistan-born Canadian citizen, is known to be associated with Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. A total of 166 people were killed in the attack, including six Americans, were killed in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks in which 10 Pakistani terrorists laid a more than 60-hour siege.
(With inputs from agencies)
