Kasab's retracted confession was not given weight

Mumbai: Although Ajmal Kasab had confessed to the terror attack for which he was trained along with others in Pakistan, he later retracted his confession saying that it was done under duress from the police.

However, Special Court Judge M Tahaliyani on Monday said: "I have not taken that part [confession] into consideration but mainly that of eye witnesses. The confession was additional evidence given by Accused No 1 [Kasab]."

He added that according to law of jurisprudence, once a confession is retracted, the court must look for corroborative evidence.

However, he considered the first confession made by Kasab before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Rama Vijay Sawant Vagule on February 17, 2009 as voluntary since all precautions were taken by the magistrate.

After Kasab said he would confess, "he was given 76 hours of reflection, more than sufficient to come out of influence of police. It was argued before me that sufficient time was not given and a police constable was present."

The judge explained that guidelines in the Criminal Manual say that 24 hours is sufficient enough and the presence of a policeman is permitted.

In this case, the police constable did not belong to the Crime Branch which was investigating the case.

Graphic details

In the confession, Kasab has given graphic details of attending training camps in Muridke, Mansare and Muzaffarabad. He has talked of interactions with the leaders including one Major General Saab of the Pakistani Army.

The judge considered the evidence of three eye witnesses — news photographers Sebastian D'Souza and Sriram Vernekar who took photographs of Kasab at different locations after they left CST and Vishnu Zende, the railway announcer at CST, as "blemishless evidence."