Tahawwur Rana extradition: Attorney seeks review of US court's decision to bring him back to India

Washington: An attorney for Mumbai-attack convict Tahawwur Rana has urged the US Supreme Court to review the lower court's decision to extradite him to India, citing the principle of double jeopardy which prevents a person from being tried or punished twice for the same offence.

India is seeking the extradition of Rana, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin, as he is wanted in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks case.

Having lost the legal battle in lower courts and several federal courts, including the US Court of Appeals for the North Circuit in San Francisco, Rana had filed a “petition for a writ of certiorari” before the US Supreme Court on November 13.

On December 16, US Solicitor General Elizabeth B Prelogar urged the Supreme to reject the petition. Rana’s counsel Joshua L Dratel, in his response on December 23 challenged the US Government’s recommendation and pleaded with the Supreme Court that his writ be accepted.

In a long battle, this is Rana’s last legal chance not to be extradited to India.

“The (Supreme) Court should grant the writ. On the merits, it should hold that the term "offence" in the double jeopardy provision of the United States-India extradition treaty (and many other similar treaties) refers to the conduct underlying the charges in the two countries, rather than the elements of the crimes the respective countries have charged," Dratel argued.

The court has scheduled a conference for both parties on this issue on January 17.

Rana, currently lodged in a jail in Los Angeles, faces charges for his role in the Mumbai attacks and is known to be associated with Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

In his ‘petitions for a writ of certiorari' to review the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Rana argued that he was tried and acquitted in federal court in the Northern District of Illinois (Chicago) on charges relating to the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai.

"India now seeks to extradite him for trial on charges based on the identical conduct at issue in the Chicago case,” it said.

Prelogar disagreed.

“The government does not concede that all of the conduct on which India seeks extradition was covered by the government’s prosecution in this case," the US Solicitor General had said.

"For example, India’s forgery charges are based in part on conduct that was not charged in the United States: petitioner’s use of false information in an application to formally open a branch office of the Immigration Law Center submitted to the Reserve Bank of India,” she said.

“It is not clear that the jury’s verdict in this case—which involves conspiracy charges and was somewhat difficult to parse—means that he has been “convicted or acquitted” on all of the specific conduct that India has charged,” Prelogar said.

A total of 166 people, including six Americans, were killed in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks in which 10 Pakistani terrorists laid a more than 60-hour siege, attacking and killing people at iconic and vital locations of Mumbai.