US extradites key suspect in Mumbai terror attacks that killed 166 people

NEW DELHI — The United States has extradited one of the suspected plotters of the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed over three days, India’s premier investigating agency said on Thursday.

India's National Investigation Agency, which deals with anti-terror crimes, said Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Pakistani-born Chicago businessman and Canadian citizen, was extradited to India after he “exhausted all legal avenues." Rana, 64, is wanted in India for allegedly aiding Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group blamed for the attacks.

The extradition comes after the issue was raised during talks in Washington between the U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in February. Trump said his administration would extradite Rana and called him “one of the very evil people in the world”.

The U.S. Supreme Court had rejected Rana’s review petition against his extradition.

The National Investigation Agency said Rana was extradited under an agreement between India and the U.S. “after years of sustained and concerted efforts to bring the key conspirator behind the 2008 mayhem to justice.”

India accuses Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency of working with Lashkar-e-Taiba to mastermind the 2008 attacks. Pakistan insists that ISI has no links to militant group and denies any connection to the attacks.

India's government has said Rana was an associate of David Coleman Headley, one of the conspirators of the three-day attacks on hotels, a train station and a Jewish center, which began on Nov. 26, 2008, when a group of 10 men rampaged across the city after they sneaked into India’s financial capital using the sea route in the Arabian Sea.

In 2016, Headley testified before an Indian court by video conference from an undisclosed location in the U.S., where he is serving a prison term for his role in the attack. A prosecution lawyer at that time said Headley admitted he had used Rana’s Chicago-based immigration services firm as a cover to scout targets in India.

The lawyer also said Headley gave the Indian court in Mumbai details of his role in planning the attack and said Pakistan’s main spy agency was deeply involved in planning the attack’s preparations and execution. The Mumbai court investigating the attack gave Headley a conditional pardon, which allowed him to become a witness.

In 2012, Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving gunman from the attack group, was hanged in an Indian jail.

Rana was arrested by the U.S. police in 2009, but a court in 2013 acquitted him of conspiracy to provide support to the Mumbai attacks.

He was, however, found guilty in another case linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, which is designated by the United Nations as a terrorist organisation. A U.S. court charged him for conspiring to attack a Danish newspaper for publishing cartoons which depicted the Prophet Mohammad and he was sentenced to U.S. federal prison.