Mumbai attacks gunman pleads guilty and confesses in court

[Turborama]

Source: Telegraph

Mohammed Ajmal Qasab, the lone surviving gunman from the Mumbai attacks terrorist gang, made a detailed courtroom confession after changing his plea to guilty. Qasab, the clean-cut 21-year-old from Pakistan who was seen by millions of television viewers prowling through Mumbai's main railway station concourse with an AK47 assault rifle, will now face the death penalty over the attacks in November which killed more than 160 people.

Government prosecutors, senior police officials leading the investigation and Qasab's own lawyer said they had been shocked by his decision on Monday and said he had given no earlier indication that he was considering changing his plea.

His eight-minute confession, in which he described how the ten terrorist commandos had left Karachi by boat, hijacked a ship and murdered its crew, and how he and his leader had shot dead the head of Mumbai's anti-terrorist squad, will intensify pressure on Pakistan to bring the masterminds behind the attack to court.

Most alarming for Pakistan is Qasab's allegation that he and nine other terrorist commandos were waved off on their boat from Karachi by Zaki ur Rahman Lakhvi, the head of the al-Qaeda-allied Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group, who is believed to have links to elements within Pakistan's ISI intelligence service. He was detained after the attacks.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/5871802/Mumbai-attacks-gunman-pleads-guilty-and-confesses-in-court.html

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The article goes on to give more details of his confession...