UAE asks India to file request for extradition

The UAE has asked India to file an official request for the extradition of a suspected gangster being held in Dubai, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said here yesterday, according to an AFP report.

A CBI spokesman said in New Delhi that the bureau had received "a communication from Interpol in Abu Dhabi asking it to process the extradition request for (suspected gangster) Anees Ibrahim".

"Such a request for the extradition of Anees will be soon be made to the UAE authorities," the spokesman told the news agency.

Meanwhile, Designated Judge P.D. Kode of the court of the Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) in India's financial capital Mumbai has passed an order to hand over copies of the confessions of the six accused, who have named Anees as being involved in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts conspiracy, to the CBI.

The CBI will receive the certified copies of the confession of Hanif Kadawala, Samir Hingora, Baba Chauhan, Usman Man Khan, Mansoor Ahmed and Mohammed Saeed Issaq alias Salim Kurla from Tada court yesterday.

The six have named Anees as having either met him personally, contacted on phone or received orders through other gang members for making arrangements of distributing weapons or storing them.

The confessions also indicate that Anees was involved in the training of youths in in a neighbouring country through Issaq. The CBI has sought the confessions in order to hand them over to Dubai Police for the extradition of Ibrahim, younger brother of Dawood Ibrahim and an absconding accused in the bomb blasts.

Anees was arrested in Dubai last week for the alleged murder of a former associate Irfan Goga in the UAE four years ago.

The seven-year trial of 122 accused in the bomb blasts has just come to an end and only the examination of evidence is left by the judge who will then give a verdict, different for each of the accused.

Farhana Shah, advocate for most of the accused, including five of those whose confessions have been sought by the CBI, told Gulf News, this may take around six months.

"If Anees Ibrahim was to be extradited and brought here to be tried, his trial will be separate and not with the 122 accused," she said.

"Once again, the witnesses will have to be called and all the points examined in the Anees case," she says.

According to well-known lawyer, Majeed Memon, who represented Nadeem Saifi in London and is also counsel to a few of the accused in the blasts case, Interpol is the only body that has the right to intervene in matters of two police forces of two countries.

"With its wide jurisdiction, it acts as the via media between the two states and encourages co-ordination among the parties," he says. Where extradition is concerned, the "requesting country has to make out a prima facie case legally and also act diplomatically".

He also stated that fingerprints are the best source of evidence to establish the person's identity especially if he has relinquished his nationality even as the controversy over handing of Anees' fingerprints to the CBI continues with Mumbai Police, refusing to make any comments on the issue.

Anees was arrested by Mumbai Police on June 29 1987 by the V.P. Road police station on charges of extortion. On the same day, he was released and fled abroad. Since then, he is reported to have not returned to India.

The Mumbai Police would have to examine their records to retrieve the fingerprints of Anees, if at all they are there.