Author: Omer Farooq Khan
Publication: The Times of India
Date: December 19, 2014
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/48-hours-after-Peshawar-26/11-butcher-walks/articleshow/45568603.cms

A day after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan's political leadership vowed to fight the last terrorist standing, a Rawalpindi anti-terrorism court on Thursday granted bail to Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the key handler in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks case, causing outrage in India.

Lakhvi, 54, and six others had filed bail applications on Wednesday in midst of a lawyers' strike called to condemn the Peshawar school massacre that left 148 people, including 132 children, dead.

 Lakhvi's bail comes a day after India expressed full solidarity with Pakistan in the aftermath of the Peshawar massacre, and the court order led New Delhi to react strongly against the bail. The court said the charge-sheet against Lakhvi and other accused was flawed and lacking in evidence. The prosecutor did not say whether the government would appeal in a higher court against the court's bail order.

 Sources said the Federal Investigation Agency, which had provided solid evidence to the court about LeT's involvement in the Mumbai attacks, disagreed with the bail but had to accept anti-terrorism court judge Kausar Abbas Zaidi's order.

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CASE AGAINST LeT CO-FOUNDER

- Pak American Let operative David Headley, who confessed to recceing targets for 26/11, described Lakhvi as the 'main architects of the attack

- 26/11 killer Ajmal Kasab, who was hanged in 2012, told interrogators Lakhvi recruited terrorist for the attack

- Indian national Abu Jundal, who set up the Karachi control room for 26/11, told interrogators on his arrest in June 2012 Lakhvi was in the room from 7 pm on November 26, 2008, monitoring developments on TV and talking to terrorists on phone

- Conversations intercepted by India revealed that it was Lakhvi who directly screamed instructions into the ears of the 26/11 attackers from the control room. Told them to kill as many as possible

- US sleuths too confirmed Lakhvi's role from call logs

- Islamabad was forced to admit the attackers were Pakistanis after India handed over one such voice clip

- NIA has sought the voice sample of Lakhvi for further probr; Pakistan is yet to oblige
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"You are Muslims. You have to get rid of poverty. Look at India. They have raced ahead of us. They kill your people. You have to wage jihad against India

- LAKHVI | As Quoted by Kasab
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The court directed Lakhvi, a trusted lieutenant of Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, to pay surety bonds worth Rs 5,00,000 ($5,000) before his release. Advocate Rizwan Abbasi had filed the bail application of the seven accused a day earlier, when lawyers across the country were on strike over the school carnage.
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 "We were not expecting this decision as we were still to produce a good number of witnesses in the case. We are awaiting the court's detailed order before giving further comment on the decision," said chief prosecutor Chaudhry Azhar. Lakhvi's counsel Raja Rizwan Abbasi told agencies that the court had granted bail as "evidence against Lakhvi was deficient".

 Operations commander of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, the parent organization of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Lakhvi has been one among the seven accused charged with planning, financing and executing the 26/11 Mumbai carnage that killed 166 people. Six other accused are Hammad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jamil Riaz, Younas Anjum, Jamil Ahmed, Mazhar Iqbal and Abdul Majid.

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GRAVE IN JUSTICE TO 26/11 VICTIMS

Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, 54
Chief operation commander, LeT

- Lakhvi is among the seven persons charged with planning and helping to carry out the Nov 26, 2008, Mumbai terror attacks, in which 161 people were killed and over 600 were injured

- Fought in Afghanistan and Chechnya against erstwhile Soviet Union (successor state: Russia)

- Believed to possess excellent organization skills and ideological commitment to jihadi cause

- Organized LeT's PoK earthquake relief in 2005

- Accused of overseeing the 2006 train bombings in Mumbai, in which over 200 people were killed and 700 injured
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ARREST AND TRIAL

- Lakhvi was arrested in Pakistan in February 2009 and indicted in November the same year

- His trial began at the anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Rawalpindi in 2009 and was transferred to the ATC in Islamabad in 2010

- In April 2014, the trial came to a standstill as the ATC special judge expressed his inability to conduct the trial of the seven 26/11 suspects due to security reasons. This came following a terrorist attacks on the district court in Islamabad in March

- He was given bail on Thursday
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He and many of his associates were arrested from LeT's headquarters in Muzaffarabad in December 2008 and the case against them registered in February 2009. Since then, the case had been moving at a snail's pace with almost negligible headway.

 Following the confession of Ajmal Kasab, the lone fidayeen survivor of the Mumbai attack, naming Lakhvi as his trainer, Syed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jandal, an Indian national who was arrested in and deported from Saudi Arabia in June 2012, too confessed he was in the control room with Lakhvi in Karachi monitoring the Mumbai attacks. Pakistani-American jihadi David Headley too had confessed to Lakhvi's key role in the Mumbai attacks.

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A PRISONER OR A VVIP

- Let co-founder Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was no ordinary prisoner at Rawalpindi's Adiala jail

- Not only did he enjoy the luxury of regular "outings" from prison to visit his family and friends, he was treated like a VVIP within the confines of the high-security prison

- Had a smooth traffic of visitors, most of them terror commanders seeking his guidance and advice

- He was at the one time using five different cellphones inside the jail to cimmunicate with LeT commanders and cadres. He made calls freely to keep tabs on the outfit's operations and gives pep-talk to his terror associates

- Lakhvi was allowed to use jail vechicles and security to meet his family and terror associates outside the prison premises

* Complited by Bharati Jain
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1. Abu Jundal, the 26/11 handler, had told interrogators that Lakhvi, during one of their meetings in Adlala Jail, had informed him that the prison authorities had allowed his wife to visit him in prison in 2010 to perform conjugal rights, following which their son was born

2. Lakhvi's "cell" in Adiala jail is a well-appointed suite with all modern faculities, incliding a television set. He has access to newspapers and moves within the jail without any restrictions

3. The jail authorities even arranged a birthday celebration for their most-coveted prisoner in 2012
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Earlier, the FIA, which had investigated the Mumbai attacks case, had told the court that those who killed over 166 people in Mumbai belonged to the LeT and had been trained in Pakistan.

 Rizwan Abbasi said the defence would soon file bail applications of the other six accused. The in-camera hearing of the case was held at Adiala Jail Rawalpindi due to security concerns. The judge adjourned the hearing till January 7.