Indian court appoints new lawyer for Mumbai attacks suspect

An Indian labourer pushes a cart through a gap between television outside broadcast vans on a road by the special bomb-proof court at Arthur Road jail in Mumbai yesterday. Indian Abbas Qasmi has been appointed as lawyer for Pakistani national Mohammed Ajmal Kasab. Kasab appeared before a special court at a maximum security prison in Mumbai on Wednesday at the start of a case that could see him handed the death penalty if convicted for taking part in November's deadly terrorist siege. Photo: AFP

An Indian court yesterday appointed a new lawyer to represent the only Islamist militant suspect captured during last year's attacks on Mumbai.
Advocate Abbas Kazmi was tasked with the defence of Pakistani national Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, a day after the high-profile trial started in disarray with a previous lawyer dismissed by the trial judge because of a conflict of interest.
The 21-year-old Kasab, said to belong to the banned Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), faces a string of charges including "waging war" on India, murder, attempted murder and kidnapping.
He faces the death penalty if convicted of taking part in the bloody rampage in November 2008 in India's financial and entertainment capital, which saw 10 gunmen land in the city by boat and murder more than 160 people.
A railway station, a café, two luxury hotels and a Jewish centre were targeted in the 60-hour attacks and hundreds were injured.
"I am willing to appear for the accused," Kazmi told the judge, saying it was important to show that India -- while still in shock over the attacks -- can put on a fair trial.
"It is an honour, as we must present a stable and democratic view of our nation," he said, before asking for government protection.
"I am concerned about my safety," he admitted to reporters.
The trial, seen as a major test of the Indian justice system, has been dogged by the issue of who should defend Kasab.
The Mumbai Metropolitan Magistrate Court's Bar Association has resolved not to represent him, while some lawyers who said they were willing to take on the case had their homes attacked.
The Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena party also called for Kasab to be executed without trial outside the Mumbai railway station where he and another militant are accused of massacring scores of commuters.
Anjali Waghmare, the wife of a police officer whose colleagues died in the attacks, had been appointed from a panel of state legal aid lawyers on March 30.
But she was denounced by the trial judge for acting in a compensation case for a victim wounded during the deadly attacks as well as accepting the brief to defend Kasab.
Two other men, Indian nationals Fahim Ansari, 35, and Sabauddin Ahmed, 24, are also on trial, accused of providing the group with logistical support before the attacks.
Prosecutors say they have evidence that "undoubtedly and conclusively" links the attacks to India's arch-rival Pakistan, including mobile and satellite phone communication between the gunmen and their LeT "handlers".
Kasab's DNA and fingerprints were found on items retrieved from the hijacked Indian fishing trawler the gunmen used to get to the Mumbai coast, it is alleged.
There is CCTV and other footage said to be of him at Mumbai's main railway station, where more than 50 people died. Thirty eyewitnesses picked him out in identification parades, the charge sheet says.
"In this case we have substantial and sufficient evidence to say at this stage... that there is a strong case against all the accused," said public prosecutor Ujwal Nikam, adding that Kasab had been caught "red handed".