India convicts Pakistani in 2008 Mumbai attack

The lone surviving member of the November 2008 attack in Mumbai that killed 166 people was convicted Monday on 86 counts, including murder, conspiracy and waging war against India, while two alleged Indian accomplices were acquitted.

The guilty verdict against Pakistan national Ajmal Amir Kasab, 22, was expected. Kasab was seen by several witnesses and recorded on closed-circuit video attacking the Mumbai railway station with a serene smirk on his face that prompted Indian media to dub him the “smiling assassin.”

The 60-hour attack in late 2008, held India’s financial center hostage as 10 gunmen, allegedly trained in Pakistan, fanned out, hitting luxury hotels, a hospital and a Jewish center.

“The judgment is a message to Pakistan that they should not export terror to India,” said P. Chidambaram, India’s home minister. “If they do, and the terrorists are apprehended, we will bring them to justice.”

But the acquittal of two Indians accused as accomplices, Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin Ahmed, was greeted with some disbelief. However some observers said it proved the fairness of India’s justice system.

“I am satisfied but sad that two of the accused, Ansari and Sabahuddin, have been acquitted,” said Ujjwal Nikam, the public prosecutor. “I will definitely challenge the verdict.”

Indian police alleged that the two men delivered maps to operatives of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani militant group to which Kasab and the other attackers allegedly belonged. But in acquitting them, the court found the evidence “poor in quantity and quality” and noted that better maps were available on Google.

Kasab’s sentencing is expected within the next few days, with the prosecution likely to request the death penalty.

Witnesses in the heavily guarded courtroom said Kasab, wearing a white pajama-like kurta, appeared unemotional as Special Court Judge M.L. Tahiliyani read out his 1,500-page judgment, a process that took nearly three hours. When the reading was complete, hundreds of broadcast reporters in front of the courthouse scrambled to out-shout and out-elbow each other amid a scrum of live camera shots.

Imtiaz Gul, chairman of Islamabad’s Center for Research and Security Studies, said the verdict could stir up resentment in Pakistan among groups sympathetic to people like Kasab. And the fact that the two Indians were acquitted belies a Pakistan view that the attack couldn’t have happened without local handlers.

Assuming Kasab receives the death penalty, appeals and the case backlog could drag out the process. Human rights watchdog Amnesty International estimated there were 400 death-sentence prisoners in India in 2008, a figure the government doesn’t reveal.

mark.magnier@latimes.com

Anshul Rana in the Times’ New Delhi bureau contributed to this report.