Kasab found guilty; Fahim, Sabahuddin acquitted

The court also held that 20 of the wanted accused, including LeT founder Hafiz Saeed, operations chief Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Abu Hamza, were involved in 26/11 conspiracy.

But in a blow to the prosecution and the Mumbai Police, Special Judge M L Tahaliyani acquitted the two Indian men - Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin - who had been co-accused in the case and alleged to be Lashkar operatives who helped stage the attack by surveying the targets and providing information about them to Lashkar handlers in Pakistan.

Of the 35 people named as fugitives in the chargesheet and who are believed to be in Pakistan, the court found only 20 guilty. The arguments over what punishment Kasab should be given will begin tomorrow and the sentencing is expected to take place on Wednesday. His crimes carry a maximum sentence of the death penalty.

Kasab found guilty; Fahim, Sabahuddin acquitted

The court said that the charge of waging war against Kasab had been proved by the telephonic conversations the 10 gunmen had with their handlers in Pakistan, the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology used to mask the identities of their phones and the GPS systems used to navigate their way from Karachi to Mumbai by sea.

The time take to prepare for the attack was not something ordinary offenders would do and the kind of training and preparation was only used to prepare for a war, the judge said. The attackers created a war-like situation by firing indiscriminately and the government was forced to call in the NSG and Marine Commandos to fight back, he said.

Kasab found guilty; Fahim, Sabahuddin acquitted

This was not a simple crime like any other murder but was a crime against the nation, the judge said.

Tahaliyani, however, acquitted Ansari and Ahmed saying there was no evidence to prove the charges against them. The two had been charged with the same 86 counts as Kasab and had pleaded not guilty.

Kasab found guilty; Fahim, Sabahuddin acquitted

The court raised questions about the evidence that had been presented to prove the charges against the two men. It said the map seized by the police from Kasab's accomplice Abu Ismail and said to have been drawn by Ansari, raised a lot of doubts and these were not cleared conclusively by the prosecution.

Tahaliyani said the maps seemed to be more confusing than guiding and Wikipedia and Google had better maps. Cama Hospital and Girgaum Chowpatty, where Kasab and Ismail ended up, were not a part of the conspiracy and the two terrorists had reached there only by mistake, he said. Also, the attackers had not planned to reach Malabar Hill as mentioned in the map, the judge said, adding that the map did not fit into the scheme of the conspiracy.

Source: Indian Express

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