Pakistan court grants bail to alleged leader of Mumbai terror attack
Jon Boone in IslamabadThursday 18 December 2014 15.25 EST
One day after Pakistan’s prime minister vowed to crack down on terrorism, a court has granted bail to the man accused of masterminding the deadly 2008 assault on Mumbai.
The decision by an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi to release Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi after finding insufficient evidence to link him to the attacks drew sharp criticism from New Delhi.
The country has long demanded action against Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terrorist group co-founded by Lakhvi that was behind the three-day assault by 10 young “fidayeen” suicide fighters in which 166 people died.
Investigators have copious amounts of evidence provided by Ajmal Kasab, the sole survivor of the attack team, and David Headley, a Pakistani-American extremist who conducted surveillance operations on the Taj Mahal Palace hotel and other targets in Mumbai.
The Indian home minister, Rajnath Singh, called the decision “very unfortunate”. “India has given enough evidence [against Lakhvi]. We expect the Pakistan government to appeal at the earliest,” he said.
Lakhvi’s lawyer said his client had been granted bail on the basis of surety bonds of more than £6,000 and could be free in under a week.
Following the massacre by the Pakistani Taliban of 141 people at a school in Peshawar this week, Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, vowed his country would “continue the war against terrorism until the last terrorist is eliminated”.
He promised there “will be no differentiation between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban”, a reference to the long history of Pakistan’s clandestine support for anti-India militant groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba.
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