Pakistani investigators today provided details of 350 articles, including the
crucial "pink foam", found in four training camps of the Lashkar-e-Taiba in
Sindh province to an anti-terrorism court conducting the trial of seven men
charged with involvement in the Mumbai attacks.
The articles were found by sleuths of the Federal Investigation Agency in LeT
camps in Karachi, the capital of Sindh, and other locations in the southern
province.
Two FIA officials – Deputy Director Faqir Muhammad and Inspector Khalid Jamil –
testified in court during a hearing held behind closed doors at the Adiala Jail
in Rawalpindi, officials said.
Special Prosecutor Chaudhry Zulifqar Ali told PTI that the FIA officials
recorded their statements and provided details of the 350 articles found in the
LeT training camps, including life jackets and a pink foam.
"It took about six hours for the court to record the details of the articles
submitted by the witnesses," Ali said.
The FIA officials had recovered the articles from four LeT training camps in
Karachi, Mirpurkhas and two other places in Sindh, he said.
"These two FIA officials are the most important witnesses in the case," Ali
said.
As main defence lawyer Khwaja Haris Ahmed was not present in court today,
cross-examination of the two prosecution witnesses could not be carried out.
At the request of the other defence lawyers, Judge Chaudhry Habib-ur-Rehman
adjourned the proceedings till December 22, when the witnesses will be
cross-examined.
The pink foam has emerged as crucial piece of evidence in investigations of the
Mumbai attacks on both sides of the border.
Indian investigators found samples of the pink foam at three sites where
attackers planted bombs in Mumbai in November 2008.
Samples of the pink foam were also found in the boat MV Kuber that was used by
the attackers to travel to Mumbai, in a bag found at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel
and in a rucksack used by Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving attacker who was
hanged in an Indian jail last month.
In Pakistan, sleuths found the pink foam at the LeT training camps in Sindh.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation had last year sought samples of the pink
foam from India to compare it to the material that was found by Pakistani
investigators.
In September 2009, Interior Minister Rehman Malik too had said that Pakistan
wanted forensic data on the pink foam found it India so that it could be
compared to the material found in Pakistan.
In an April 2009 diplomatic cable from the US Embassy in Islamabad that was made
public by Wikileaks last year, former Charge D'Affaires Gerald Feierstein had
written that the pink foam was "possibly the most important piece of evidence
shared with the FBI" and that an analysis of the material found by investigators
in Mumbai could "help prove the conspiracy case in Pakistan".
The seven Pakistani suspects, including LeT operations commander Zakiur Rehman
Lakhvi, have been charged with planning, financing and executing the attacks on
Mumbai in November 2008 that killed 166 people.
Their trial has been progressing at a snail’s pace and only a handful of over
160 prosecution witnesses have testified so far.
During a hearing on September 29, prosecution witnesses had testified about the
training of the 10 terrorists involved in the Mumbai attacks at LeT camps in
Karachi, Battal in Mansehra district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province and
Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Emerging story. Watch this space for updates as more details come in
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