http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/world/asia/21india.html?_r=1&hp
MUMBAI, India The man the Indian authorities have put on trial as the only survivor of the team of gunmen that killed more than 160 people here in November offered a dramatic and unexpected confession on Monday, reversing months of denials.
Moments before the trials 135th witness was to take the stand, the defendant, a young Pakistani named Ajmal Kasab, stood up and told the judge that he had participated in the attacks.
Speaking softly in Hindi and Urdu to a stunned and spellbound courtroom, he gave a detailed recounting of the planning and execution of the operation, beginning with his introduction to a Pakistan-based Islamic extremist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and ending with the rampage that hit two luxury hotels, a railway station, popular cafe and a Jewish center.
I dont think I am innocent, Mr. Kasab, 21, declared toward the end of his daylong confession. My request is that we end the trial and I be sentenced.
Mr. Kasab spoke extemporaneously, without warning even his own court-appointed lawyer, and the court must now decide whether to accept his confession. The judge, M. L. Tahilyani, said that a written transcript of his statement was being prepared and that Mr. Kasab would be asked to sign it on Tuesday.
Revealing new details, Mr. Kasab described how he became a Lashkar-e-Taiba soldier, a rare glimpse into the motivations of extremist recruits. He said he was working for a pittance at a decorating shop in the town of Jhelum, in Pakistan, a job he hated. He and a friend decided to become armed robbers.
Mr. Kasab said they went to the garrison city of Rawalpindi, next to Islamabad, where they decided to ask a jihadist group to train them to be militants. They would then use those skills to become expert robbers. They asked around in the citys market for the mujahedeen fighters, and someone directed them to Lashkar-e-Taibas office.
In the weeks after the attack, Indian and United States investigators said that Lashkar-e-Taiba planned the attacks, but Pakistan initially denied that any of its citizens had been involved. The Pakistani government, however, has charged five men, believed to be Lashkar operatives based in Pakistan, with involvement. The founder of the organization, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, has not been charged.
Since November relations between India and Pakistan, which have always been strained, have been in a deep freeze, with progress in the Mumbai investigation a major sticking point. In the past few weeks, however, the mood has begun to thaw.
After a meeting last week between the prime ministers of India and Pakistan in Egypt, the Pakistani government gave a new dossier to the Indian government that, according to people who have seen it, includes new evidence of Lashkar-e-Taibas role in the attacks. The issue has also been the subject of talks this week between Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Indian officials during her visit here.
The dossier appeared to have an impact on Mr. Kasabs decision to admit his involvement. Under questioning by Judge Tahilyani, Mr. Kasab said that he was confessing now because Pakistan, after months of denying he was a Pakistani, had finally admitted that he was a citizen and had begun cases against other suspects in that country.
What I am doing, I am doing of my own will, Mr. Kasab said. There is no pressure on me.
But Mr. Kasab did not answer directly the judges question of how he found out that he had been named in the dossier, a crucial point because Mr. Kasab is not supposed to have access to newspapers or television.
Mr. Kasabs court-appointed lawyer, S. G. Abbas Kazmi, said that he had no idea that his client planned to confess, or how he learned about the Pakistani dossier.
Someone must have read him the newspaper, Mr. Kazmi said. The guards might have told him.
Mr. Kazmi has said he has struggled to put together an effective defense because he has had severely limited access to Mr. Kasab. He has not been allowed to talk to his client for more than 15 minutes a day and has only been able to do so in the presence of police and court officials.
I still have not got my instruction from him to my satisfaction, Mr. Kazmi said in a recent interview. Its very important to have a closed door legal interview with his lawyer.
Mr. Kasabs confession corroborated much of what India had suspected about the planning and execution of the attack. Prosecutors said that he described how Abu Hamza and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, two top Lashkar-e-Taiba leaders, saw him and the other attackers off in the seaside Pakistani city of Karachi then traveled in four different boats to reach Mumbai, prosecutors said.
He told the court how he and one of the other attackers assembled a bomb in a public bathroom at a train station, and placed another bomb in a taxi.
In chilling security videotape from the attacks, Mr. Kasab appears dressed in cargo pants and blue T-shirt, a machine gun in one hand and a backpack slung over his shoulder. In later mug shots, his youthful face sports a sparse goatee.
The special prosecutor assigned to the case, Ujjwal Nikam, took credit for the confession, saying Mr. Kasab changed his plea because prosecution presented irrefutable evidence against him. But Mr. Nikam added that the confession was incomplete and appeared to be devised to limit Mr. Kasabs prison sentence.
He has not blurted out the entire, full truth, Mr. Nikam said.
Mr. Kasab confessed to being one of the terrorists after he was arrested. But he later recanted, saying that the police had tortured him. Pakistans defense minister, Chaudhary A Mukhtar, called Mr. Kasabs confession one sided and said it might have been made under pressure, according to The Press Trust of India.
At times during the trial, Mr. Kasab has surprised the judge and lawyers by laughing at statements by witnesses and the prosecutor. He has complained about the stench in his cell, which is apart from the general jail population. Mr. Kazmi said the flush for the toilet in his cell was not working.
He had earlier asked for a cheap scent to cover up the smell, an Urdu-language newspaper and the permission to walk on the veranda outside his cell. The court has not agreed to those requests.
The case against Mr. Kasab was already strong, but the confession increases the likelihood that his trial will now end relatively quickly. The case was already setting speed records for Indias notoriously slow judicial process. It is not unusual for cases to last for a decade or more in India.
Ashok Chavan, chief minister of Maharashtra, the state that includes Mumbai, told India NDTV station: I think it is beyond doubt that this entire conspiracy was hatched by these Pakistani nationals. I think the further court proceedings should be completed as soon as possible and all those people involved in this crime should be hanged.
MUMBAI, India The man the Indian authorities have put on trial as the only survivor of the team of gunmen that killed more than 160 people here in November offered a dramatic and unexpected confession on Monday, reversing months of denials.
Moments before the trials 135th witness was to take the stand, the defendant, a young Pakistani named Ajmal Kasab, stood up and told the judge that he had participated in the attacks.
Speaking softly in Hindi and Urdu to a stunned and spellbound courtroom, he gave a detailed recounting of the planning and execution of the operation, beginning with his introduction to a Pakistan-based Islamic extremist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and ending with the rampage that hit two luxury hotels, a railway station, popular cafe and a Jewish center.
I dont think I am innocent, Mr. Kasab, 21, declared toward the end of his daylong confession. My request is that we end the trial and I be sentenced.
Mr. Kasab spoke extemporaneously, without warning even his own court-appointed lawyer, and the court must now decide whether to accept his confession. The judge, M. L. Tahilyani, said that a written transcript of his statement was being prepared and that Mr. Kasab would be asked to sign it on Tuesday.
Revealing new details, Mr. Kasab described how he became a Lashkar-e-Taiba soldier, a rare glimpse into the motivations of extremist recruits. He said he was working for a pittance at a decorating shop in the town of Jhelum, in Pakistan, a job he hated. He and a friend decided to become armed robbers.
Mr. Kasab said they went to the garrison city of Rawalpindi, next to Islamabad, where they decided to ask a jihadist group to train them to be militants. They would then use those skills to become expert robbers. They asked around in the citys market for the mujahedeen fighters, and someone directed them to Lashkar-e-Taibas office.
In the weeks after the attack, Indian and United States investigators said that Lashkar-e-Taiba planned the attacks, but Pakistan initially denied that any of its citizens had been involved. The Pakistani government, however, has charged five men, believed to be Lashkar operatives based in Pakistan, with involvement. The founder of the organization, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, has not been charged.
Since November relations between India and Pakistan, which have always been strained, have been in a deep freeze, with progress in the Mumbai investigation a major sticking point. In the past few weeks, however, the mood has begun to thaw.
After a meeting last week between the prime ministers of India and Pakistan in Egypt, the Pakistani government gave a new dossier to the Indian government that, according to people who have seen it, includes new evidence of Lashkar-e-Taibas role in the attacks. The issue has also been the subject of talks this week between Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Indian officials during her visit here.
The dossier appeared to have an impact on Mr. Kasabs decision to admit his involvement. Under questioning by Judge Tahilyani, Mr. Kasab said that he was confessing now because Pakistan, after months of denying he was a Pakistani, had finally admitted that he was a citizen and had begun cases against other suspects in that country.
What I am doing, I am doing of my own will, Mr. Kasab said. There is no pressure on me.
But Mr. Kasab did not answer directly the judges question of how he found out that he had been named in the dossier, a crucial point because Mr. Kasab is not supposed to have access to newspapers or television.
Mr. Kasabs court-appointed lawyer, S. G. Abbas Kazmi, said that he had no idea that his client planned to confess, or how he learned about the Pakistani dossier.
Someone must have read him the newspaper, Mr. Kazmi said. The guards might have told him.
Mr. Kazmi has said he has struggled to put together an effective defense because he has had severely limited access to Mr. Kasab. He has not been allowed to talk to his client for more than 15 minutes a day and has only been able to do so in the presence of police and court officials.
I still have not got my instruction from him to my satisfaction, Mr. Kazmi said in a recent interview. Its very important to have a closed door legal interview with his lawyer.
Mr. Kasabs confession corroborated much of what India had suspected about the planning and execution of the attack. Prosecutors said that he described how Abu Hamza and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, two top Lashkar-e-Taiba leaders, saw him and the other attackers off in the seaside Pakistani city of Karachi then traveled in four different boats to reach Mumbai, prosecutors said.
He told the court how he and one of the other attackers assembled a bomb in a public bathroom at a train station, and placed another bomb in a taxi.
In chilling security videotape from the attacks, Mr. Kasab appears dressed in cargo pants and blue T-shirt, a machine gun in one hand and a backpack slung over his shoulder. In later mug shots, his youthful face sports a sparse goatee.
The special prosecutor assigned to the case, Ujjwal Nikam, took credit for the confession, saying Mr. Kasab changed his plea because prosecution presented irrefutable evidence against him. But Mr. Nikam added that the confession was incomplete and appeared to be devised to limit Mr. Kasabs prison sentence.
He has not blurted out the entire, full truth, Mr. Nikam said.
Mr. Kasab confessed to being one of the terrorists after he was arrested. But he later recanted, saying that the police had tortured him. Pakistans defense minister, Chaudhary A Mukhtar, called Mr. Kasabs confession one sided and said it might have been made under pressure, according to The Press Trust of India.
At times during the trial, Mr. Kasab has surprised the judge and lawyers by laughing at statements by witnesses and the prosecutor. He has complained about the stench in his cell, which is apart from the general jail population. Mr. Kazmi said the flush for the toilet in his cell was not working.
He had earlier asked for a cheap scent to cover up the smell, an Urdu-language newspaper and the permission to walk on the veranda outside his cell. The court has not agreed to those requests.
The case against Mr. Kasab was already strong, but the confession increases the likelihood that his trial will now end relatively quickly. The case was already setting speed records for Indias notoriously slow judicial process. It is not unusual for cases to last for a decade or more in India.
Ashok Chavan, chief minister of Maharashtra, the state that includes Mumbai, told India NDTV station: I think it is beyond doubt that this entire conspiracy was hatched by these Pakistani nationals. I think the further court proceedings should be completed as soon as possible and all those people involved in this crime should be hanged.
