'Kasab's confession was given voluntarily'

''I have accepted most part of the confession and also held that it was voluntarily given by Kasab and not given under duress as claimed by him,'' Judge M L Tahaliyani said while pronouncing the operative part of the verdict on Monday.

Magistrate Sawant Waghule had done her best to explain to Kasab that his confession can go against him in the trial and also gave him 72 hours to ponder over his move to confess voluntarily, the judge noted.

"I have rejected Kasab's plea that his confession was not voluntary and was given under police duress," the judge said, adding he also dismissed the defence argument that a policeman was present in the magistrate's chamber when the accused was making a statement.

The mere presence of a policemen in the magistrate's chamber would not suggest "police pressure" because it could be that the magistrate would have ordered the cop to be there because of security reasons, the judge said.
Moreover, Judge Tahaliyani said, the constable who was present during the confession did not belong to the investigating team and was part of the police staff who had been deputed on duty in the court in the normal course.

Kasab had stated in the confession how he was trained by LeT commanders Hafeez Sayeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi at a training camp in Pakistan.

He also said they were given arms and intelligence training and carried with them modern gadgets like global positioning system and mobile phones with VOIP services.

He narrated the sequence of events commencing from his joining LeT, training, sailing from Karachi to Mumbai, murdering crew of Kuber boat, killing several people and police officers by planting bombs and opening fire on them.