India readies for US extradition of Mumbai attacks suspect

NEW DELHI: Indian authorities are readying for the extradition from the United States of a man that New Delhi accuses of helping plan the 2008 Mumbai siege that killed 166 people.

Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 64, a Canadian citizen born in Pakistan, is due to be extradited “shortly” to face trial, Indian media said, reporting that New Delhi had sent a multi-agency team of security officials to collect him.

US President Donald Trump announced in February that Washington would extradite Rana, whom he called “one of the very evil people in the world”.The US Supreme Court this month rejected his bid to remain in the United States, where he is serving a sentence for a planning role in another LeT-linked attack.

India accuses Rana of helping his longterm friend, David Coleman Headley, who was sentenced by a US court in 2013 to 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to aiding LeT militants, including by scouting target locations in Mumbai.

Rana, a former military medic who served in Pakistan´s army, emigrated to Canada in 1997, before moving to the United States and setting up businesses in Chicago, including a law firm and a slaughterhouse.He was arrested by US police in 2009.

A US court in 2013 acquitted Rana of conspiracy to provide material support to the Mumbai attacks. But the same court convicted him of backing LeT to provide material support to a plot to commit murder in Denmark.

Rana was sentenced to 14 years for his involvement in a conspiracy to attack the offices of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which had published cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed that angered Muslims around the globe.