Pakistan-based LeT's operations chief Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi has filed a petition in the Lahore HC, challenging an anti-terrorism court's dismissal of his plea for acquittal.
Pakistan-based LeT's operations chief Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, one of the seven suspects facing trial for involvement in Mumbai attacks, has filed a petition in the Lahore High Court, challenging an anti-terrorism court's dismissal of his plea for acquittal.
A Rawalpindi-based division bench of the Lahore High Court will shortly take up for preliminary hearing the petition filed by Lakhvi's lawyer Khwaja Sultan yesterday.
An anti-terrorism court that is conducting the trial of Lakhvi and six other suspects had recently dismissed their plea for acquittal.
In his petition, Lakhvi claimed that the proceedings against him should be quashed and he should be acquitted under the Criminal Procedure Code on the grounds that there was no evidence or witness against him that could get him convicted in the case.
Referring to the anti-terror court's dismissal of his plea, Lakhvi claimed the judge had failed to appreciate the fact that there was no witness against him and no incriminating material had been recovered from his custody or on his information by investigators.
Lakhvi also alleged that he had been implicated in the case because of information provided by India on the basis of the confession made by Mohammad Ajmal Amir aka Kasab, the lone attacker arrested alive during the 2008 Mumbai strikes.
Lakhvi contended that under Pakistani law, Ajmal's confession was inadmissible against him because Ajmal had not been named as an accused or proclaimed offender in three separate chargesheets filed by Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
He claimed the prosecution had no evidence that he trained Kasab for terrorist activities or hatched a conspiracy to carry out the Mumbai attacks.
Pakistani prosecutors have told the anti-terror court that they have adequate evidence against Lakhvi and the six other suspects.
The anti-terror court was to begin recording evidence against the suspects at the last hearing on January 16 but this was put off because the accused have filed another petition in the Lahore High Court seeking the transfer of their case from Rawalpindi to Lahore.
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