Key 26/11 plotter Rana a step closer to extradition
In charge sheet filed last year, Mumbai police alleged that Rana was not just a co-conspirator with Headley but also actively involved in planning the attacks.
Tahawwur Rana, wanted for his involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, can be extradited to India, a US court held as it rejected the Pakistani-origin Canadian national’s plea against his extradition, a significant step in the quest for justice for the deadly 2008 strikes.
Indian authorities have accused Rana of helping co-conspirator David Coleman Headley carry out reconnaissance of targets in Mumbai and providing logistical support to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in orchestrating the attacks, which killed 166 people, including 24 foreign nationals—five of them Americans. He was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2009 for being part of conspiracies to commit terrorist acts outside the US, including in Mumbai and Copenhagen.
“Under the limited scope of habeas review of an extradition order, the panel held that Rana’s alleged offence fell within the terms of the extradition treaty between the United States and India,” the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held on Friday (India time).
In a charge sheet filed last year, the Mumbai police’s crime branch said that Rana was not only a co-conspirator along with Headley, but that he actively participated in the plans to carry out the attacks. In June 2020, India had sought Rana’s provisional arrest for his extradition, and the Biden administration supported it. On May 16, 2023, an extradition court certified his extradition to India. The 63-year-old then moved a habeas court in California, which rejected his petition on August 10, 2023. He then approached the circuit court.
“The panel [of judges] affirmed the district 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,” the circuit court said.
To be sure, Rana has the option of appealing against the ruling. He still has not run out of all the legal options to prevent his extradition to India.
In its ruling, the court held that India provided sufficient evidence to support the magistrate judge’s finding of probable cause that Rana committed the charged crimes. Before the magistrate judge who initially decided Rana’s extraditability (the extradition court), Rana argued that the US extradition treaty with India protected him from extradition because of its Non Bis in Idem (double jeopardy) provision. He also argued that India did not provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate probable cause that he committed the charged crimes.
The extradition court rejected Rana’s arguments and certified that he was extraditable. After Rana raised the same arguments in a habeas petition in district court (the habeas court), the habeas court affirmed the extradition court’s findings of facts and conclusions of law. As per US law, if Rana is not extradited to India, he will be deported to his home country, Canada, after the completion of his prison term in 2027.
A group of 10 LeT terrorists simultaneously targeted multiple places in India’s financial hub, in an attack that spanned four days. All but one of the 10 attackers were killed, and Ajmal Kasab, who was part of the group, was captured alive. After initially refusing to accept his nationality, Pakistan acknowledged Kasab as a citizen. He confessed about his training by the LeT and was subsequently convicted and hanged in 2012.
