Washington DC: The extradition of 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks accused Tahawwur Rana to India will be delayed by a few weeks, NDTV reported.
The development comes days after President Trump announced during PM Modi’s visit that Tahawwur Rana ‘is going back to India to face justice’.
Rana’s extradition was made possible after the US Supreme Court rejected his review petition.
However, he has filed a final appeal on humanitarian grounds leading probably to delay his arrival in India by a few weeks.
A federal jury in 2011 had convicted Rana, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin who had previously worked for Pakistan army, of providing material support to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terrorist organisation behind the 2008 attacks.
At least 166 people were killed, which included 20 police personnel, security forces and 26 foreigners, when several places in Mumbai came under attack on November 26, 2008.
US President Donald Trump on Thursday told a joint press meet with PM Modi that his administration approved the extradition of Tahawwur Rana ‘one of the very evil people of the world having to do with the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack to face justice in India. He is going back to India to face justice... We are giving a very violent man, it seems to me’.
Trump said that the US and India will together confront like ‘never before’ the threat of ‘radical Islamic terror’ across the world.
NDTV reported citing sources that Rana’s travel to India could be delayed by a few weeks after he had filed a final appeal in a US appeals forum on humanitarian grounds.
Meanwhile, experts reportedly said that this would not affect diplomatic relations between India and the US.
Another conspirator, Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley told investigators in the US that Rana had travelled to India five times between2007 and 2008 and involved in conducting a recce of targets in Mumbai.
Headley reportedly said that he had visited India on a five-year visa obtained with the help of Rana and was helped by Rana to set up an immigration company to hide his identity.
In 2011, a US court convicted Rana of providing material support to the Lashkar-e-Taiba and helping with a terror plot in Denmark but acquitted him on charges of abetting terror attack in Mumbai.