Islamabad, July 17 (IBNS): A Pakistani court trying suspects accused of planning and executing the 2008 attacks on Mumbai has rejected that the findings of the commission that visited India earlier this year to conduct a probe.
The Indian move of not allowing the commission access to witnesses in the case was illegal, Chaudhry Habib-ur-Rehman, the judge of the anti-terrorist court (ATC) of Rawalpindi on Tuesday said.
The report of commission that visited India will not be made part of evidence against Mumbai attacks accused standing trial in Pakistan and that the activities of the judicial commission were a waste of time, he said.
The commission was not only barred from cross-examining but was not even given access to the four witnesses, the court further said, according to Pakistan’s Dawn News.
If both Pakistan and India agreed then the judicial commission could travel to India to cross-examine the witnesses in the future, the ATC added.
The ATC was hearing the petition against the judicial commission, submitted by the accused in the case including Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi.
The eight-member Pakistani commission, which included prosecutors and defence lawyers, visited Mumbai earlier this year and interviewed a judge, a senior police officer and two doctors who conducted the autopsies of the Pakistan-based terrorists involved in the attacks and their victims.
India has in the past accused Pakistan of stalling trials against the suspects of the 2008 attacks, known in India as 26/11, that left 166 people dead and over 300 wounded, a charge that Islamabad has denied.
