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IHM wants judicial confession of Kasab
The Indian Home Ministry (IHM) on Monday asked the Maharashtra government to get an in-camera judicial confession of Ajmal Amir Iman aka Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist of the Mumbai attack.Once his confession is recorded, the government will consider foreign governments' demand to allow their agencies to independently interrogate him, sources said, referring to the demand made by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday to let the Scotland Yard talk to Kasab.The sources said India was open to the questioning of Kasab by foreign agencies like the Scotland Yard and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), but not immediately as that might impinge upon the current investigations by the Mumbai Police. Access: First his confession will be recorded before a court and then the foreign agencies will be given access to him, the sources said. They said the government had a videotaped confession of Kasab, copies of which have been provided to the US and the UK and also presented before the United Nations Security Council to get its fiat issued to Pakistan. However, the tape has no legal value and hence the need to record the confession before a magistrate, the sources said. Though the government has not provided this evidence to Pakistan so far, the sources said it must have, however, already reached Islamabad through the international interlocutors and from its representative in the UN. They said the government would provide Pakistan the confession that Kasab would make before the court. The sources said the External Affairs Ministry would be forwarding a lengthy letter written by Kasab to the Pakistan High Commission and also urge upon it to take the custody of the bodies of the other nine terrorists lying in JJ Hospital's mortuary in Mumbai. They added that the US FBI and other Western investigating agencies have already taken DNA samples of all the nine terrorists killed in the attacks to ascertain if they had any Afghan or other terror links. The Western investigators have also carried out a detailed examination of the explosive devices used in the attacks and have found similarities with those used by terrorists in Afghanistan, the sources said. The FBI team accompanied by investigators from the UK's Scotland Yard was in Mumbai for a fortnight looking into clues including the Internet telephony signatures intercepted by the Indian intelligence agencies when the terrorists were receiving calls. The sources added that after registering the case the FBI team had been able to break into the code of Internet telephony. Posted by: Fred 2008-12-16 |
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