“The (India US Extradition) Treaty permits Rana’s extradition,” the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said on Thursday.
Ruling on an appeal filed by 63-year-old Rana, a panel of three judges affirmed the District Court in the Central District of California’s denial of his habeas corpus petition challenging a magistrate judge’s certification of him as ‘extraditable‘ to India.
Rana, currently lodged in a jail in Los Angeles, faces charges for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai attack and is known to be associated with Pakistani-American LeT terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators of the attacks.
US judge: Rana said people of India deserved 26/11 attack
Writing the opinion for the bench that ruled that Tahawwur Hussain Rana can be extradited to India, judge Milan Smith said “India provided sufficient competent evidence” to support the initial order of a magistrate judge’s “finding of probable cause that Rana committed the charged crimes” to allow the extradition.
Rana, a Canadian citizen living in Chicago, was arrested in the US in 2009 for plotting to bomb a Danish newspaper, ‘Jyllands-Posten’, that published a controversial image of Prophet Mohammed.
He faced three main charges in a Chicago federal court relating to his involvement in the Danish case, providing support to Lashkar, and conspiring for the Mumbai attacks.
He was acquitted of the Mumbai attack charge, but convicted in the other two and sentenced to 14 years.
The appeals court ruled that his acquittal in the Mumbai attack charge did not affect his extradition because in India he faces several different charges, including conspiracy, waging war, murder, terrorism, and forgery.
Rana was released after seven years on compassionate grounds during the Covid-19 pandemic, following which India requested his extradition to face trial here, which the magistrate judge approved.
Rana is a former Pakistan Army doctor who set up an immigration service after immigrating to Canada. The judgment mentioned Rana helping Headley get a five-year visa for India under the pretext of setting up a branch of his business there. Headley used the visa to help plot the Lashkar terror rampage by surveilling the Taj Hotel and other targets. Headley had informed Rana about the surveillance activities, the judgment said.
Judge Smith also noted in the judgement that “Rana commended the terrorists who carried out the attacks and stated that the people of India ‘deserved it’.”