In a crucial development in the 26/11 attacks trial, jailed Pakistani-origin Canadian ‘businessman’ Tahawwur Rana is expected to be brought to India after a panel of judges from the US Court of Appeals ordered his extradition. The National Investigation Agency is investigating Rana’s involvement in the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008.
It is pertinent to recall that in August 2024, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stated that Tahawwur Rana is “extraditable to India” under the extradition treaty between India and the US. The panel upheld the district court’s denial of Tahawwur Hussain Rana’s habeas corpus petition, which challenged a magistrate judge’s certification of Rana as extraditable to India for his suspected role in terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
According to NIA officials, the extradition process for Tahawwur Rana is now underway, Economic Times reported. Rana received an international arrest warrant, and the NIA submitted a charge sheet. During the court proceedings, US prosecutors contended that Rana was aware that his childhood friend Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley had links with LeT, and that by supporting Headley and providing him cover, Rana was supporting the Islamic terror outfit.
As reported earlier, Tahawwur Rana was convicted in the United States for his involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. He was imprisoned for more than 10 years for supporting terrorist groups and plotting Mumbai attacks.
The panel held that the Non-Bis in Idem exception did not apply in Rana’s case because the Indian charges contained distinct elements from the crimes for which he was acquitted in the United States.
The US court relied on the text of the treaty, the State Department’s technical analysis, and persuasive case law of other circuits and held that the word “offence” refers to a charged crime, rather than underlying acts, and requires an analysis of the elements of each crime.
In its ruling, the US court also held that India provided sufficient competent evidence to support the magistrate judge’s finding of probable cause that Rana committed the charged crimes. The three-judge panel included Milan D Smith, Bridget S Bade, and Sidney A Fitzwater.
The US district court tried him on charges of supporting a terrorist organisation that carried out large-scale terrorist attacks in Mumbai. The jury convicted Rana of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organisation as well as conspiring to provide material support to a foiled plot to carry out terrorist attacks in Denmark.
However, the jury acquitted him of conspiring to provide material support to terrorism-related activities to the attacks in India. Following his convictions, he served seven years in prison but after his compassionate release, India made the extradition request to the US so that he could be tried in India for his role in the Mumbai terror attacks.
Rana had contested his extradition on grounds of Non-Bis in Idem (double jeopardy) exception in the India-US extradition treaty. Challenging his extradition proceedings before the Magistrate court, where it all initially began, he argued that India did not provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate probable cause that he committed the charged crimes.
However, the extradition court rejected his arguments and certified that he was extraditable. He then challenged it in district court (the habeas court), but this court also upheld the extradition court’s findings of facts and conclusions of law.
Rejecting his contentions on the grounds of exception in the India-US treaty, Judge Smith said, “Because the parties do not dispute that the crimes charged in India have elements independent from those under which Rana was prosecuted in the United States, the Treaty permits Rana’s extradition.”
