SC may decide on Ajmal Kasab plea Wednesday

Aug 29, 2012 |

New Delhi

Tags:

The Supreme Court will pronounce on Wednesday its verdict on Pakistani terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Kasab’s plea against his conviction and the death sentence awarded to him in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, in which 166 people were killed.

Twenty-five-year-old Kasab, who is the sole terrorist to have survived after the shooting spree at various landmarks in Mumbai in 2008, filed the appeal from prison challenging the Bombay high court judgement which confirmed the death sentence awarded to him by a trial court.

A bench of Justices Aftab Alam and C.K. Prasad had reserved its verdict on April 25 after a marathon hearing, spanning over two -and-a-half months, of arguments by the prosecution and defence counsel. The apex court had appointed senior advocate Raju Ramachandran as amicus curiae to argue on behalf of Kasab.

The court will also deliver its verdict on the Maharashtra government’s plea challenging the Bombay high court order upholding the acquittal of Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, the alleged Indian conspirators of the 26/11 terror attack, by the trial court. The two were acquitted due to lack of corroborative evidence.

The apex court had stayed Kasab’s death sentence on October 10, 2011. In his special leave petition (SLP) against the Bombay high court judgment, which confirmed his death sentence, Kasab had claimed he was brainwashed like a 'robot' into committing the crime in the name of 'God' and pleaded that he does not deserve the death penalty due to his young age.

Kasab, during the argument in the apex court, had contended that he was not given a free and fair trial and that he was not the part of any larger conspiracy for waging war against India.

He had also contended that the prosecution had failed to prove the case against him beyond doubts and told the bench that his right against self-incrimination as well as his right to get himself adequately represented by a counsel to defend himself in the case had been violated during the trial.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/184687" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-a2f01a1d4e2bed11e7883c1a902c4c86" value="form-a2f01a1d4e2bed11e7883c1a902c4c86" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80936494" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>