Tahawwur Rana
| Photo Credit:
ANI
Mumbai terror attack accused Tahawwur Rana, a Pakistani-origin Canadian citizen, is likely to be extradited to India from the Unite States “shortly” to face trial here.
A multi-agency team from India, including officials from intelligence agencies, was camping in US to complete formalities for bringing Rana, who is said to be an agent of Pakistan’s ISI and had worked for the CIA too, to India after the US Supreme Court rejected his appeal against the extradition, sources said.
They also said that Rana’s landing in India under the custody of officials is expected shortly depending on how early the paperwork and legal formalities are completed in the US. An active member of proscribed terror outfit LeT, he may come early on Thursday morning, sources indicated.
Rana, 64, is currently lodged in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles.
Rana will remain in the custody of NIA, the premier central anti-terror agency, for interrogation and preparations have been made to keep him either at a highly secured place in Delhi or in Mumbai jails.
Rana had submitted an ‘Emergency Application For Stay Pending Litigation of Petition For Writ of Habeas Corpus’ on February 27, 2025, with Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and Circuit Justice for the Ninth Circuit Elena Kagan, an agency reported from New York.
Kagan had denied the application earlier last month, it said.
Rana had then renewed his ‘Emergency Application for Stay Pending Litigation of Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus previously addressed to Justice Kagan’, and requested that the renewed application be directed to US Chief Justice John Roberts.
An order on the Supreme Court website noted that Rana’s renewed application had been “distributed for Conference” on April 4 and the “application” has been “referred to the Court.”
A notice on the Supreme Court website Monday said that “Application denied by the Court.” New York-based Indian-American attorney Ravi Batra had told PTI that Rana had made his application to the Supreme Court to prevent extradition, which Justice Kagan denied on March 6.
The application was then submitted before Roberts, “who has shared it with the Court to conference so as to harness the entire Court’s view.” The Supreme Court justices are Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Samuel A Alito, Jr, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Neil M Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
In his emergency application, Rana had sought a stay of his extradition and surrender to India pending litigation (including exhaustion of all appeals) on the merits of his February 13 petition.
In that petition, Rana argued that his extradition to India violates US law and the UN Convention Against Torture “because there are substantial grounds for believing that, if extradited to India, the petitioner will be in danger of being subjected to torture.”
“The likelihood of torture in this case is even higher though as petitioner faces acute risk as a Muslim of Pakistani origin charged in the Mumbai attacks,” the application said.
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Published on April 9, 2025