The representative deposed before the court on Thursday through a video conferencing line from the FBI office in Los Angeles. MTNL, the telecom company, made arrangements for the video conferencing and had erected three giant screens in the high-security Arthur Road central prison, where the trial is taking place.
Ten Pakistani terrorists had sailed from Karachi in a Pakistani boat and had hijacked the Indian fishing trawler 'Kuber' off Gujarat coast to reach closer to Mumbai.
They had abandoned the trawler in the sea and used the dinghy to sail ashore at Colaba fishermen's colony in Mumbai. Confirming that the machine used in the dingy was from Yamaha, the witness said: “The engine had been dispatched by the Yamaha Company in Japan to Business and Engineering Trends Company in Pakistan on January 20 last year.”
He further added that the machine was dispatched to the Karachi sea port in Pakistan and the payment was made in Japan. Special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam also produced a letter on the company’s letterhead, which confirmed that the machine was sent to Pakistan.
The letter had been written and signed by Michelle, who is an assistant services manager at Yamaha and was procured by the FBI during investigations. Despite the witness identifying Michelle’s signature on the letter, Kasab’s lawyer Abbas Kazmi raised objections stating that the signature was not that of the witness.
However, M L Tahilyani, the designated judge, took the letter on record stating its evidential value can be argued later. The witness denied Kazmi’s contention that he has been deposing wrongly at the behest of the FBI.
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