2 get death, Abu Salem life for ’ 93Mumbaiblasts

24 YEARS LATER Special TADA court sentences five in India’s longest terror trial

MUMBAI: A court on Thursday sentenced two men to death and two more, including gangster Abu Salem, to life in jail for the 1993 Mumbai serial bombings that killed 257 people.

A fifth convict, Riyaz Siddiqui, was given 10 years in prison.

The verdict came 24 years after the dozen blasts in India’s financial capital and nearly 80 days after they were found guilty by the Special Tada Court.

The 50-year-old Salem was spared the gallows because of an extradition treaty with Portugal, where he was hiding before being brought to India.

Salem and his former actressgirlfriend Monica Be di were arrested by Interpol in Lisbon in 2002 and were handed to Indian agencies in November 2005.

An important clause in the Indo-Portuguese treaty for Salem’ s ex tradition was an assurance by New Delhi that he would not be sentenced to death.

“The extradition treaty says the maximum sentence permissible to him is 25 years, since life imprisonment and death penalty are banned in Portugal,” special public prosecutor Deepak Salve said.

“The government will take a decision… whether to com mute the life sentence to 25 years.”

Co-convicts Firoz Khan and Tahir Merchant were free from such constraints.

Special TA DA court Judge GA Sanap sentenced them to death for the dozen explosions that wounded 713 people and destroyed property worth ₹27 crore. Karimullah Khan, a close aide of India’s most wanted man Dawood Ibrahim, was awarded life imprisonment.

Dawood had ordered the attacks to avenge the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya by a Hindu mob a year before, which triggered large-scale religious riots.

The court in June convicted six people, including fellow mastermind Mustafa Dossa and Salem.

Dossa died of a heart attack in Mumbai’ sJ J Hospital a few days after his conviction.

› The government has powers of remission and pardon and to honour its undertaking, it can pardon Salem’s remainder of the sentence given by the trial court SUDEEP PASBOLA, advocate who defended Salem

DELHI/MUMBAI: DespiteaMumbai court handing life sentence to extradited gangster Abu Salem for his role in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, he may actually not spend more than 25 years behind bars because of a sovereign undertaking by India to Portugal while extraditing him in 2005.

On Thursday, the designated Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) court pronounced sentences against five of the six convicts in the case. The sixth convict, Mustafa Dossa, died after the special public prosecutor began his argument son the quantum of sentence and sought capital punishment for him earlier this year. Tahir Merchant and Firoz Khan were sentenced to death, while life imprisonment was pronounced for Karimullah Khan. Riyaz Sid di que got 10 years in jail.

Advocate R is hi Mal hot ra, who has represented Sale min the SC, said ,“Salem was extradited from Portugal after giving an undertaking to Portugal that Salem will not be given a death penalty or sentenced to a jail term exceeding 25 years. Normally, a life term means the convict stays behind bars till the end of his life. But in this case, the TADA court has given him a life term which violates the undertaking given by the government of India.”

Though extradition terms specify conditions, such a clause cannot prohibit an Indian court from giving such a sentence. To makeup for this, the government included a commitment that they would, if such a sentence were imposed, resort to legal measures to restrict it.

So the question is if the court was right in giving Salem a life term in spite of a sovereign undertaking. The answer to this was given by the Supreme Court in 2012 while dealing with Salem’s petition, where he argued that he can not be tried for the of fences which en tailed death penalty as the same was the precondition agreed by the Indian government at the time of his extradition. The apex court in its judgment said Portugal cannot impose any pre-condition on Indian courts.

Advocate Sudeep Pasbola, who defended Abu Salem in the 1993 blasts case, said, “It is now for the government to see that undertaking given to Portugal government is not violated and it can easily be taken care of. The

government has powers of remission and par don and to honour its undertaking, it can exercise powers and pardon Salem’ s remainder of the sentence given by the trial court.”

Pasbola also believes that this life sentence can go onto be one of the important grounds for challenging the verdict in the SC.

This is not the first time that Salem has been sentenced to life.

Earlier in 2015, a special TA DA court sentenced A bu Salem to life imprisonment and slapped a Rs 8 lakh fine, for the murder of builder Pradeep Jain in 1995. Salem has been the only case of successful ex tradition by India of an accused from a European country. Hence, his case has always raised a discussion on the allegation of violations and its consequences if there are any.

Former Maharashtra advoc ate-general( AG) Shrih ari Aney said the reasons for which Salem has alleged violation of extradition conditions comes into the picture only if the Indian government deliberately suppressed facts and cases known to them before .“If the government found new evidence against the accused after the extradition, the accused would be tried under fresh material under the Indian law and procedure of Indian judiciary. This cannot be a violation,” Aney said.

Senior counsel Ashok Mund argi said imprisonment for life is not a violation as such, because according to the treaty, Salem was not given capital punishment as Portugal had abolished death penalty in their country .“Under the criminal procedure code, though the imprisonment for life is for the entire life of the convict, the jail manual provides for various categoriesfor imprisonment for life.

The categories start from imprisonment for 14 years and goes above, but not till death,” Mundargi said. It is the jail authorities that decide which category the convict falls under and it is for the state, or in case of the 1993 blasts, the Centre to take a decision.

Mundargi said in case of a breach, the only consequence would be that Portugal would consider the aspects before honouring any further requests.