An Indian judge accepted the confession of the lone surviving gunman from the shooting attacks in Mumbai, but said Thursday the trial would proceed anyway.
The young Pakistani gunman, Ajmal Kasab, unexpectedly confessed Monday to taking part in the November attack that paralyzed India's financial capital and killed 166 people.
The court had delayed a decision on whether to accept his confession and guilty plea, with prosecutors arguing that his statement was incomplete and saying his confession was a manuever to gain clemency. In response, Kasab said he was willing to be hanged for his actions.
"If I am hanged for this, I am not bothered," he said. "I don't want any mercy from the court. I understand the implications of my accepting the crime."
Kasab unexpectedly confessed Monday to taking part on the first day of the attacks in downtown Mumbai, India's financial and entertainment capital. His statement bolsters India's charges that terrorist groups in neighboring Pakistan were behind the well-planned attack, and that it is not doing enough to clamp down on them.
Kasab admitted spraying gunfire into the crowd at Mumbai's main train station, and described in detail a network of training camps and safe houses across Pakistan, giving the names of four men he said were his handlers.
He denied killing four Mumbai policemen whose deaths remain touchstones of grief and anger in India.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Islamabad was waiting for copies of the confession, but that it would not impede ongoing efforts at dialogue between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.
The court has issued arrest warrants for 22 Pakistanis accused of conspiring in the attack.
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Mumbai is reeling in the wake of a string of co-ordinated attacks by armed men which left scores dead and hundreds injured.
Security forces on Saturday killed the last of the attackers at the Taj Mahal, three days after the gunmen had holed themselves up with several hostages.
CCTV footage of the operation inside Mumbai's iconic Taj Hotel.
All crucial leads into the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai are coming from one man - Abdul Amir Qasab, the lone terrorist captured alive. But behind the capture is a story of grit, of a group of 5 policemen who trapped two terrorists, killed one, and got the other alive. Those policemen stopped the terrorists from spreading further mayhem in Mumbai.
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Thursday, July 23, 2009
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