NIA team ready to go to US for custody of Tahawwur Rana, awaits final nod

A three-member NIA team, led by an Inspector General-rank officer and including a Deputy Inspector General-rank officer, along with three more officials from other Intelligence agencies, will leave for the US on getting confirmation of the ‘surrender warrant’, said sources. “As per the discussion, they will get Rana’s custody at the airport and will return immediately,” said a source.

Rana (63), who is of Pakistani origin, is currently lodged in a jail in Los Angeles. He is known to be associated with Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks which claimed 166 lives.

Paving the way for his extradition, the US Supreme Court, on January 21, had rejected a review petition filed by Rana. It is learnt that after the US Supreme Court’s decision, an NIA team was initially called to the US in January-end, but officials there later sought more time to review all the documents.

“Senior officials of the Ministry of External Affairs, along with officials of the Home Ministry and the NIA, were in constant touch with US officials. They were informed that the US State department was also coordinating with the Secretary of State for issuing the ‘surrender warrant’ for Rana,” a source in the MHA said.

Meanwhile, although the Indian government had submitted multiple assurance letters earlier, it was asked to provide some more assurances, said a source. “In one such assurance letter, the Indian government was asked for details about security arrangements and facilities in the jail where Rana will be kept. The Indian authorities had responded to four queries from US officials — about apprehension of torture in police custody, legal aid, security arrangements and facilities in the Tihar Jail,” the source said.

According to sources, once Rana is extradited, the NIA is expected to question him at its headquarters in Delhi, where security will be stepped up. “There is no formal communication to the Tihar Jail administration, but they have also started a security assessment of his cell; they are likely to lodge him in a high-security ward. His cell will have CCTV cameras, with in-built bathroom facility, and they will monitor his activities 24×7,” the source said.

Following his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Washington DC early Friday (India time), Trump had said: “I am pleased to announce that my administration has approved the extradition of one of the plotters, and one of the very evil people of the world… of the horrific 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack to face justice in India. So he’s going to be going back to India to face justice… We are giving a very violent man… We are giving him back to India immediately, and there are more to follow, because we have quite a few requests. So we work with India on crime, and we want to make it good for India, and it’s very important. So that kind of a relationship is very important to us.”

Saying that India and the US would stand together in the fight against terrorism, Modi had said he was “very grateful to President Trump” for handing over somebody “who carried out genocide in India”. “That criminal is now going to be handed over to India, and I am grateful to President Trump for this, and appropriate action will be taken in the court in India,” he had said.

Stepping up the efforts to get Rana’s custody over the last seven months, Indian officials, including from central investigative agencies and legal departments, are learnt to have held a meeting with their US counterparts at the US Embassy in Delhi too.

In 2011, the NIA had filed a chargesheet against nine persons, including Rana, for plotting and executing the Mumbai attacks. In 2014, a Sessions Court in Delhi had issued fresh non-bailable warrants against the nine, who the NIA had listed as absconders.

In US courts, Rana had argued that the US extradition treaty with India protected him from extradition because of its non bis in idem (double jeopardy) provision. He had also argued that India did not provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate probable cause that he had committed the charged crimes.

In August last year, a US court in California ruled that Rana could be extradited to India under the extradition treaty between the two countries.

Last November, Rana filed a “petition for a writ of certiorari” — essentially a process to seek review of a lower court order — before the US Supreme Court. In his plea, he argued that he was tried and acquitted in a federal court in the Northern District of Illinois on charges related to the Mumbai attacks. But the US Supreme Court rejected his review petition in January this year.

Rana studied at the Hasan Abdal Cadet School in Pakistan, which Headley too attended for five years. After a stint as a doctor in the Pakistan Army, Rana moved to Canada and was eventually granted Canadian citizenship. He later established a consultancy firm called First World Immigration Services in Chicago. It was a branch of this business in Mumbai that provided Headley with the perfect cover to identify and surveil potential targets for the LeT.

Headley, a US citizen who was born to an American mother and a Pakistani father, was arrested in October 2009 by US authorities and sentenced to 35 years in prison for his involvement in the Mumbai attacks. Rana was arrested in the US soon after.

In 2011, Rana was convicted of providing material support to LeT and for supporting a plot to attack a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, which printed cartoons of the Prophet in 2005. However, jurors in the US cleared Rana of the more serious charge of providing support for the attacks in Mumbai.