The indictment of Lashkar-e-Tayiba leader Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and six other suspects by a Pakistani anti-terror court for planning and helping execute the Mumbai attacks will be challenged in the Lahore high court, as authorities have no solid evidence against them, the militant commander's lawyer said on Sunday.
Khwaja Sultan Ahmed, the counsel for Lakhvi, said he would file a petition in the Lahore high court to challenge the indictment before the next hearing of the case in the anti-terror court on December 5. Mere propaganda against the accused will not be enough to convict them," he said.
"I don't think the government has any solid evidence against the accused. The court has indicted them under pressure (from the interior ministry) and I am quite hopeful that the Lahore high court will undo it," Ahmed said.
A Rawalpindi-based anti-terror court last week indicted Lakhvi, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Mazhar Iqbal alias Abu al Qama, Abdul Wajid alias Zarar Shah, Shahid Jamil Riaz, Jamil
Ahmed and Younas Anjum for providing training, weapons and funds to the 10 terrorists, including Ajmal Amir Kasab, to carry out the attacks in Mumbai during November 26-28 last year that killed nearly 180 people.
Lakhvi was described in the prosecution's chargesheet as the mastermind of the attacks All the accused have pleaded not guilty.
Ahmed was of the view that there are also "many loopholes" in the case against Kasab in India.
He said if the Pakistan government allowed him to do so, he would be willing to go to India and challenge the Indian lawyers in this regard.
For example, he said the prosecution had presented a witness who claimed he had met Kasab in Nepal and found maps of Mumbai in his possession.
"The prosecution did not present that witness again, perhaps finding him hardly an impressive one," he said.
The confessional statement of Kasab too is questionable, Ahmed claimed.
