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| Mumbai attacks: US court allows extradition of Pakistani-origin businessman Tahur Rana to India |
A US court has approved the extradition of Tahur Rana, a Pakistani-born Canadian businessman from Chicago to India.
Fidshan Rana is wanted by the Indian government for his involvement in the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.
The attacks killed 166 people and were blamed on the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
In 2011, a federal court judge in Chicago convicted Tahur Rana of aiding Lashkar-e-Taiba but acquitted him of planning and direct involvement in the Mumbai attacks.
He was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2013 for these crimes. In 2020, Tahur Rana was released from a US prison on compassionate grounds after testing positive for Covid-19 but was re-arrested after an extradition request from India.
Tehur Rana has denied all the charges leveled against him and had also challenged the extradition request to India which was being supported by the US government.
On Monday, a Chicago court agreed to his extradition to India. The court said that Rana has been charged in India with criminal conspiracy, acts of terrorism, and murder, which are extraditable offenses under the treaty between the US and India.
However, it has been said that Rana will remain in US custody until the US State Department takes a final decision.
Indian authorities have accused Tahur Rana of conspiring with his childhood friend David Coleman Headley and helping the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Prosecutors in the case said that in 2006, Rana allowed Headley to open an office in Mumbai of his Chicago-based immigration services firm, which Headley used as a cover to scout locations for the 2008 attack.
Rana was also accused of allowing Headley to pose as a representative of his firm to gain access to newspaper offices by expressing interest in buying advertising space.
Headley, who served a 35-year prison sentence in the US for his involvement in the Mumbai attacks, testified against Tahur Rana in 2011. Rana's defense team said at the time that he had been used and misled by his old friend Headley.
Speaking to the Indian news agency ANI, Special Public Prosecutor for the Mumbai attacks case, Ujwal Nikam, called the decision to extradite Tahur Rana an 'important development'.
He said that the US court's order to extradite Tahur Rana is a big victory for India. To my knowledge, this is the first time that the US government has relied heavily on the evidence of the Indian Investigation Agency.
He further said that 'I think this order of extradition of Tahur Rana will help us in many ways in opening the door of criminal conspiracy completely.'
Who is Tahur Rana and for what crimes was he convicted?
Tahur Hussain Rana, 59, was brought up in Pakistan and joined the Pakistani Army Medical Corps after completing his medical degree.
He and his wife, herself a doctor, became Canadian citizens after immigrating in 2001.
Before his arrest in 2009, Rana lived in Chicago and ran several businesses, including an immigration and travel agency.
Tahur Rana was charged with 12 counts, including aiding and abetting the killing of American citizens.
He is also accused of providing cover for Headley and passing messages between his former friend and a man named 'Major Iqbal', who some believe is part of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency.
Tahur Rana was convicted of providing material support to Lashkar-e-Taiba and his role in a failed plot against a Danish newspaper, but the Pakistani-Canadian was acquitted of direct involvement in the Mumbai attacks. , in which more than 160 people, including six Americans, were killed.