Judge M L Tahaliyani has announced May 3 as the date for the verdict after hearing the arguments by both prosecution and the defence.
Shortly after being criticised by the Shia community for defending Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone gunman arrested during the terror siege on Mumbai, lawyer Abbas Kazmi has been removed as a trustee from the prestigious Islam Gymkhana on the same ground. Kazmi's appointment as a trustee of Islam Gymkhana was terminated this week on the ground that defending a terrorist was against the essence of Islam. This is the second instance where Kazmi has been criticised.
Medical tests have revealed that Ajmal Amir Kasab, prime accused in the Mumbai terror attack case, is above 20 years of age and not a juvenile as claimed by him.
Advocate for Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone gunman arrested for his alleged involvement in the November 26 terror strikes, on Tuesday sought four weeks time to reply to the draft charges proposed by the prosecution. Abbas Kazmi, who was appointed by the court last week to represent Kasab, sought time to study the case.
Prime accused and the lone surviving terrorist of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, departed from his earlier stand on Monday, saying he could not understand the proceedings of the court conducted in English.
The lone surviving gunman Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab and slain Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative Ismail Khan had planned to strike Raj Bhavan but could not succeed as they were overpowered by the police at Chowpatty enroute to Malabar Hill, the prosecution said on Monday.
Buoyed by a Pakistan court's order -- that stated that the trial of terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab cannot be separated from that of the seven Pakistani suspects arrested for planning the terror siege on Mumbai -- Lashkar-e-Tayiba commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi plans to file a petition in the Supreme Court seeking an acquittal. "We will approach the Supreme Court in a few days, following the Lahore high court's order," said Lakhvi's lawyer Khwaja Sultan.
Judge M L Tahiliyani, while deciding on the date for the start of the trial, said a lawyer from the Maharashtra Service Legal Authority, Anjali Waghmare, has been appointed to represent him. Tahiliyani informed Kasab that advocate Waghmare from the state legal aid would represent him and another lawyer would be appointed to assist her.
Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist arrested in the November 26 terror attacks, said on Monday that he needed a lawyer and was agreeable to a court-appointed government defence lawyer representing him.
Suspecting that a video clip of Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab's court hearing has been leaked to the media, government has advised television channels not to broadcast it.
Flagging his stand on the sons-of-soil issue, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray said on Wednesday that if Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab could learn Marathi in a year then why can't Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi who has been living in Mumbai for years.
Pakistan's navy chief on Saturday retracted his statement -- that Ajmal Amir Kasab did not take the sea route -- and said he backed the Interior Ministry's report that nine terrorists had sailed from Karachi to launch the strikes. Admiral Noman Bashir, who had on Friday contended that the navy had no evidence to prove that Kasab took the sea route, said he was not contradicting the Interior Ministry's report on the Mumbai attacks.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday fired the special public prosecutor in the Mumbai terror attack case, more than a week after the senior lawyer sparked a controversy claiming that Islamabad had formally requested India to hand over Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist arrested during the three-day terror siege..
Pakistan has sought from India voice recordings of the persons identified as 'handlers' by Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist arrested for the Mumbai attacks, and other technical information to carry forward its probe into the incident.
India's approach of "cohesive diplomacy" has "forced" Pakistan to admit that its soil was used for launching the Mumbai attacks, Home Minister P Chidamabaram said on Monday and asked Islamabad to complete its probe and punish all the guilty.
Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone Pakistani terrorist captured during the terror attack on Mumbai in November last year, can be tried in India as he had committed a crime in that country, Pakistan's Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said on Saturday.The accused, who had been detained in Pakistan in connection with the Mumbai attacks, will be brought to trial in a Pakistani court, said Mukhtar. India could conduct Kasab's trial according to its own laws, Mukhtar said.
Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist caught alive during the November 26, 2008 attacks in Mumbai, has retracted from his guilt plea made in the trial court last July.
Investigating agencies have gathered enough evidence to show that Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist caught alive in the Mumbai terror attack, was part of a criminal conspiracy hatched in Pakistan, Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam has said. Nikam, appointed a special public prosecutor to handle the 26/11 case, said the chargesheet would be filed in a special court in the next couple of days.
India on Wednesday adopted a wait-and-watch approach on reports from Pakistan that cases have been filed against Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist of the Mumbai attacks, and 13 others, saying it will comment only after receiving an official communication.
"We have received intelligence inputs stating that Kasab's life may be under threat from the underworld," Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria said.
The Pakistani handlers of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, who attacked Mumbai during the 26/11 terror attacks, wanted to obtain the release of captured gunman Ajmal Amir Kasab in exchange for the hostages held by the terrorists, an indictment chargesheet for two suspects has said.
Amid reports of a rift between them, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani met in Islamabad on Wednesday to discuss the regional security situation after the country's admission that captured Mumbai attacker Ajmal Amir Kasab is its national. The meeting came amid Pakistani media reports that Zardari was angry over Gilani's decision to sack Durrani without consulting him. Durrani had been handpicked by Zardari for the key post last year.
Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist captured in the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, on Friday stood his ground in the witness box while recording his statement under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Power to examine the accused).
A brief statement issued by the Prime Minister's House said Yousuf Raza Gilani had sacked Durrani 'for his irresponsible behaviour (of) not taking Prime Minister and other stakeholders into confidence and lack of coordination on matters of national security'. Gilani was quoted by Geo News channel as saying that he had sacked Durrani for commenting on the issue of the nationality of Iman alias Ajmal Kasab without taking him (Gilani) or the government into confidence.
Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone Mumbai carnage terrorist arrested, was today remanded in police custody till January 19 by a magistrate's court for his role in the shootout at the Cama and Albless Hospital in south Mumbai.
The deadlock over appointment of a lawyer for Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist of November 26 attacks here, could be solved by appointment of amicus curiae, going by the Bombay High Court's recent judgment.
Pakistan, which is yet to admit that Ajmal Amir Kasab is its national, said it will respond by Wednesday to a letter written by the lone terrorist captured during the Mumbai attacks in which he has sought legal assistance from it.
A five-member team of the Interpol met Mumbai Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria on Monday and sought details of Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist captured alive during the November 26 terror strikes.
Cut to the task, Pawar immediately got back to work after the special court ended its proceedings on Monday at around 3.45 pm. Pawar ensconced himself inside the court to study the documents in details keeping a bevy of eager media persons waiting for more than two hours.
In a U-turn, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said there is still no 'real evidence' that the terrorists who attacked Mumbai came from Pakistan nor had it been established that the lone arrested attacker Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab hailed from the country's Punjab provinceZardari, who earlier acknowledged that the perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage of November 26 could be 'non-state actors' from Pakistan, made these remarks.
A city magistrate on Wednesday told the 26/11 trial court that prime accused Ajmal Amir Kasab had confessed before her voluntarily, his role in the terror attacks, saying he wanted others to draw inspiration from his confession.
The drama at the special court in Mumbai's Arthur Road Jail, which is the venue for the trial of the Mumbai terror attacks case, continued on Thursday. A day after Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist arrested during the terror siege on Mumbai last year, urged the special court to punish him by hanging, his lawyer Abbas Kazmi told the court that he wanted to withdraw from the case.However, Kazmi later changed his mind and agreed to continue with the case.
Family members of the slain policemen, who laid down their lives fighting terrorists on the November 26 last, said the gunman Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab should be hanged without any delay.
Ajmal Amir Kasab, prime accused in the terror attack on Mumbai, and his lawyer Abbas Kazmi on Wednesday gave contradictory statements to the special court during the 26/11 trial. While Kasab stated that he not given his confession under any pressure or torture, Kazmi claimed that Kasab was being mentally tortured by the guard manning his cell.However, when Judge M L Tahiliyani asked if he was under any kind of mental or physical pressure, Kasab replied in the negative.
Kasab had pleaded guilty to the offence before the court on Monday, and now Judge Tahaliyani will decide if the trial should continue or not.
Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist arrested during the terror attack on Mumbai in November last year, admitted that he was guilty during the ongoing trial at a special court in Mumbai on Monday.Kasab, who had retracted his earlier confession, on Monday pleaded guilty to the charges against him. He also narrated the entire sequence of events that took place during the terror siege.Kasab named Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi as the mastermind.
Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone captured terrorist of the audacious Mumbai terror attack, was trained by the Pakistan Marines, an elite unit of the Pakistan Navy, says a report in The Week.
The government has said that Ajmal Amir Kasab, who has been sentenced to death in the Mumbai terror attacks case, may be hanged in a year.
The government on Tuesday said that Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist arrested during the terror siege on Mumbai who was sentenced to death by a special anti-terror court last week, may be hanged by the end of this year, provided there is no legal bar."If there is no petition from him (Kasab) challenging the sessions court verdict in the higher court, he can be hanged by the year-end," Union Home Secretary G K Pillai told a TV channel.
The death sentence given to Ajmal Amir Kasab may take years to be executed as the lone captured terrorist of Mumbai attacks could be 30th in the list of prisoners who are waiting to be sent to the gallows. Thursday's order by judge M L Tahaliyani is the first step of a long process which will include appeals before higher courts and most importantly, if he exercises his right, a clemency petition before the President.