AniA Chicago businessman born in Pakistan wanted in India for his role in the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai City was brought to the country after being extradited from the United States.
Tahawwur Rana, a Canadian citizen, landed in Delhi on Thursday. The National Agency for Investigation of India confirmed that its extradition had succeeded.
In 2011, an American court erased him with a direct role by helping to draw the attacks which killed 166 people, but condemned him for supporting a militant group blamed for the attacks.
Sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2013, the 64-year-old man was released in 2020 for health fields, but was arrested later that year after India’s extradition request.
An American courtyard approved Rana’s extradition in 2023, but he stayed in detention pending final approval by the country’s government.
In February, President Donald Trump approved Extradition after his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The United States Supreme Court then rejected Rana’s calls against the decision.
The extradition took place under the Indian-American extradition treaty signed by the two countries in 1997.
Who is Tahawwur Rana?
Rana grew up in Pakistan and studied medicine before joining the medical profession of the Pakistani army. He and his wife, also a doctor, became Canadian citizens in 2001.
Later, they moved to Chicago, where Rana runs several companies, including an immigration and travel agency.
Indian authorities accused Rana of plotting with his childhood friend David Coleman Headley to help the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-E-Taiba (Let), which was blamed for Mumbai’s attacks.
A group of 10 activists stormed a station, hotels, cafes and a Jewish center in Mumbai, pulling and launching bombs. India and the United States have appointed the terrorist organization.
The American prosecutors in the case said that in 2006, Rana had enabled Headley to open an office of her immigration service company based in Chicago in Mumbai, which Headley then used as a coverage to light up the sites for the 2008 attacks.
Rana was also accused of having allowed Headley of presenting himself as a representative of her business in order to access newspaper firms by forming the interest in the purchase of advertising space.
Headley – who pleaded guilty of having identified places for Mumbai’s attacks – was a key witness. He said he had links to leave and the Pakistani intelligence service. Pakistan has repeatedly denied such links. Headley also testified against Rana.
Rana’s defense team at the time said he was manipulated and misleaded by Headley, an old friend of their days in a Pakistani military school.
In 2011, the jurors of the Federal Court of Chicago condemned Rana for having provided rental support and for her role in an abandoned plot against a Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten. But he was authorized for the more serious accusation to help trace Mumbai’s attacks and received a 14 -year -old prison sentence.
Headley was sentenced to 35 years for his role in attacks. He is deposited in a federal prison in Chicago.
Getty imagesWhat are the accusations against Rana in India?
In India, Rana and Headley were tried in absentia before a court in Mumbai for their presumed involvement in the attacks. Headley later became the approval in the case.
The accusations brought against Rana by the National Agency of Investigation of India include the criminal plot, the war against the Indian government and terrorism.
In his plea against being extradited to India before the lower court in the United States, Rana had argued that India intended to continue him for the same offenses for which he had been acquitted by the American court.
His plea was rejected, the court claiming that the Indian accusations were distinct from those for which he had been prosecuted in the United States.
In his appeal before the United States Supreme Court to suspend her extradition, Rana said that it would violate US law and the United Nations Convention on Torture “because there are substantial reasons to believe that, if it were extradited to India, the petitioner will be in danger of being subjected to torture”.
“The probability of torture in this case is even higher, but the petitioner faces an acute risk as a Muslim of Pakistani origin charged in the attacks of Mumbai”, the demand said.
He also cited the underlying health conditions of Rana and the concerns about the treatment he would receive in the Indian prison. His plea was rejected.
Ujjwal Nikam, the former prosecutor in the case in Mumbai, told Rana’s extradition to the Extradition of Rana would help to reveal more about “the involvement of the Pakistan security apparatus” in the attacks.
