US Supreme Court clears 26/11 convict Tahawwur Rana's extradition to India

The US Supreme Court has turned down a review petition by terror accused Tahawwur Rana, dismissing his last legal challenge against his extradition to India in connection with the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.

“Petition DENIED,” the Supreme Court said. The apex court's order came on January 21, a day after Donald Trump was sworn in as the US President.

Earlier, Rana lost legal battles in several federal courts, including the US Court of Appeals for the North Circuit in San Francisco.

Rana, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin, on November 13 filed a “petition for a writ of certiorari” before the US Supreme Court to review the lower court's ruling.

Rana, who is currently detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, is known to be associated with Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

Headley obtained Rana's consent to open an office of First World Immigration Services as a cover for his activities in India.

Earlier, the US government had argued in the court that the petition for a writ of certiorari should be denied. US Solicitor General Elizabeth B Prelogar said this in its filing before the Supreme Court on December 16.

She said Rana was not entitled to relief from extradition to India in this case.

In his ‘petitions for a writ of certiorari to review the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Rana argued that he was tried and acquitted in federal court in the Northern District of Illinois (Chicago) on charges relating to the 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai.

‘India now seeks to extradite him for trial on charges based on the identical conduct at issue in the Chicago case,” it said.

Prelogar disagreed.

“The government does not concede that all of the conduct on which India seeks extradition was covered by the government's prosecution in this case. For example, India's forgery charges are based in part on conduct that was not charged in the United States: petitioner's use of false information in an application to formally open a branch office of the Immigration Law Center submitted to the Reserve Bank of India,” the US Solicitor General had said.

“It is not clear that the jury's verdict in this case — which involves conspiracy charges and was somewhat difficult to parse — means that he has been “convicted or acquitted” on all of the specific conduct that India has charged,” Prelogar had said.

A total of 166 people, including six Americans, were killed in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks in which 10 Pakistani terrorists laid a more than 60-hour siege, attacking people at iconic and vital locations of Mumbai.