| Capital idea. |
Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the 21-year-old captured in a shootout with police during NovemberÂ’s three-day rampage by 10 gunmen in IndiaÂ’s financial capital, stunned a Mumbai court and his own attorneys on July 20 with a detailed admission of his role in the attacks which killed 166 people and raised tensions with nuclear-armed neighbor Pakistan.
“If the punishment is hanging, then go ahead and hang me,” Kasab, who says he is from Faridkot in Pakistan, said in court today after Judge M.L. Tahaliyani asked him if he was aware of the enormity of his confession.
Defense lawyer Abbas Kazmi said the only two punishments for the crimes Kasab is accused of were the death penalty or life imprisonment, and his clientÂ’s abrupt change of heart after earlier denials was not a ploy to lessen the sentence. Special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam had argued that by shifting more of the blame on to an accomplice in his confession, the gunman was attempting to save his life.
Kasab has been charged with murder and waging war on the state.
| He's a foreigner. By international law he's either an agent of Pakistan or a brigand -- indeed, since he came by sea, he's technically a pirate. Either condition, agent or pirate, earns him the death penalty. Wring all the information one can from him and then hang him in a public square in Mumbai. |
In court inside a Mumbai jail today Nikam said that if the court agreed to continue with the trial it could be wrapped up within a month. “Kasab has admitted his complicity in the crime. Now we would expose why Mumbai was targeted and foreigners killed,” Nikam said. “We would like to expose the infrastructure” of the Lashkar-e-Taiba network India blames for the attacks.
The militants arrived in Mumbai aboard an inflatable dinghy on Nov. 26 and targeted two luxury hotels, a Jewish center, a restaurant popular with tourists and the main railway terminal with automatic guns, grenades and explosives. It ended as special forces commandos killed the last gunman in the Taj Mahal hotel on MumbaiÂ’s Colaba waterfront. Security camera footage of Kasab strolling around with an automatic weapon and backpack has become an iconic image of the attacks which India refers to as 26/11.
In his confession, Kasab told how he and his accomplices had attended forest camps where they were trained in handling AK-47s, rocket launchers and grenades, and described how he and a fellow attacker, Abu Ismail, were told to fire into crowds at the cityÂ’s main railway station before taking hostages and firing at arriving security forces.
Kasab said his decision to admit his part in the attacks was triggered by information from his guards that Pakistan had admitted he was a Pakistani citizen and was investigating. “Perhaps a picture was created that now there is no hope, even Pakistan has disowned you,” Kazmi, his lawyer, told the Associated Press yesterday.
A spokesman for Pakistan’s foreign ministry, Abdul Basit, said by telephone today from Islamabad an investigation was ongoing. “When Kasab makes statements there, that won’t have any effect on our investigation or trial. Our own legal procedures will be followed.”
| And boy howdy do they have procedures to follow ... |