iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled that Tahawwur Rana, the Pakistan-origin Canadian businessman involved in the 26/11 attack is “extraditable to India” under the extradition treaty between the two countries.
The California-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower federal court verdict permitting his extradition and ruled that the 1997 extradition treaty between India and the US covered his alleged offenses.
Rana’s extradition would be a partial fulfillment of India’s attempts to get the US-based Lashkar-e-Taiba accomplices to face trial in India as the US has refused to extradite Rana’s Pakistani-American accomplice Daood Gilani, who uses the name David Headley. Headley had worked as an informant for the US government’s Drug Enforcement Agency and after admitting to 12 terrorism-related charges, he made a deal to cooperate with the US government on the condition that he would not be extradited. 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 1 percent of the appeals it receives.
A three-panel appeals court bench heard the habeas corpus petition against the Central California District Court judgment allowing Rana’s extradition. The panel affirmed the lower court’s denial of Tahawwur Hussain Rana’s habeas corpus petition challenging a magistrate judge’s certification of Rana as extraditable to India for his alleged participation in terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
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.
Rana, a Canadian citizen living in Chicago, was arrested in the US in 2009 for plotting to bomb a Danish newspaper, ‘Jyllands-Posten’, that published a controversial image of Prophet Mohammed. He faced three main charges in a Chicago federal court relating to his involvement in the Danish case, providing support to Lashkar, and conspiring for the Mumbai attacks. He was acquitted of the Mumbai attack charge, but convicted in the other two and sentenced to 14 years.
The appeals court ruled that his acquittal in the Mumbai attack charge did not affect his extradition because in India he faces several different charges including conspiracy, waging war, murder, terrorism, and forgery, the judgment noted.
Mumbai Police in its chargesheet has named Rana in the 405-page chargesheet in connection with the 26/11 attacks. Rana is accused of being an operative of ISI and Lashkar-e-Taiba. In the chargesheet, Rana is accused of supporting the 26/11 attacks’ mastermind David Coleman Headley, who conducted the recce of the Mumbai attacks
Under the limited scope of habeas review of an extradition order, the US panel held that Rana’s alleged offense fell within the terms of the extradition treaty between the United States and India, which included a Non-Bis in Idem (double jeopardy) exception to extractability “when the person sought has been convicted or acquitted in the Requested State for the offense for which extradition is requested.”
Relying on the plain text of the treaty, the State Department’s technical analysis, and persuasive case law of other circuits, the panel held that the word “offense” refers to a charged crime, rather than underlying acts, and requires an analysis of the elements of each crime.
The panel concluded that a co-conspirator’s plea agreement did not compel a different result, and further held that the Non Bis in Idem exception did not apply because the Indian charges contained distinct elements from the crimes for which Rana was acquitted in the US.
Less than a year after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, the FBI in Chicago arrested Rana. The accused terrorist was operating a travel agency in Chicago 15 years ago, when he and his friend David Coleman Headley, scouted Mumbai locations and landing zones to carry out the attack.
According to investigators, Pakistani terrorists who carried out the deadly attack worked off a blueprint that Rana had a hand in producing. Rana and David Headley are charged with aiding the terror plot. Headley cooperated with investigators, while Rana fought it and lost.
Rana was released from jail after seven years on compassionate grounds during the Covid pandemic, following which India requested his extradition to face trial there, which the magistrate judge approved. Rana is a former Pakistan Army doctor who set up an immigration service after immigrating to Canada.
The judgment mentioned that Rana helped Headley get a five-year visa for India under the pretext of setting up a branch of his business there. Headley used the visa to help plot the Lashkar terror rampage by surveilling the Taj Hotel and other targets. Headley had informed Rana about the surveillance activities, the judgment said.
Judge Smith also noted in the judgment that “Rana commended the terrorists who carried out the attacks and stated that the people of India ‘deserved it’.”
