Pakistan-born Canadian national Tahawwur Hussain Rana will remain behind bars and not be released on bail pending a trial, US judge Nan Nolan ruled on Tuesday.
Prosecutors say Rana knew about the deadly attack in Mumbai last year before it happened. Judge Nolan overruled a pretrial recommendation that Rana be freed on bond, saying the wealthy businessman has the means and the knowledge to flee internationally to avoid prosecution.
“The government has met its burden of showing serious risk of flight,” said US Judge Nolan. The judge considers Rana a flight risk because he has Canadian citizenship. Besides, when you have a net worth of more than $1.5 million, own a travel agency and know your way around the world, you are quite capable of blowing out on bond and never returning to court.
Rana has been charged with helping David Coleman Headley — an old friend from military school in Pakistan — plot an attack on the Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. But in a motion filed on Monday, prosecutors said Rana had advance knowledge of the Mumbai attacks. It is unclear whether prosecutors will now file additional Mumbai charges against Rana.
A wiretapped conversation between Rana and cooperating co-defendant Headley reveals that Rana had been told about the Mumbai plot days before the shooting. During the conversation Rana asked Headley to pass on congratulations to a specific Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba leader they both knew who had coordinated the Mumbai attacks.
“What I said is the government has the preliminary transcripts that were as much unintelligible as they were intelligible,” defence attorney Patrick Blegen told DNA.
During a hearing a few weeks ago, Rana was likened to Gandhi by his lawyer. In Monday’s motion, the government ripped that suggestion.
