Mumbai attack case: Lakhvi's lawyers cross-examine 2 witnesses

Mumbai attack mastermind Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi's lawyers today cross-examined two witnesses in a Pakistani anti-terrorism court, including the owner of a local company that had sold eight Yamaha boat engines to one of the facilitators of the 2008 terror assault.
"Lakhvi's lawyers today cross examined the owner of the company that had provided Japanese engines to one of the accused - Amjad Khan - in the Mumbai attack case," a court official said after the hearing.
"They also cross examined another witness, a customs official, who told the court that the department had issued customs clearance certificate of the engines imported from Japan to Khan after he paid the customs duty," he said.

The engines were used by Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists Ajmal Kasab and others to power their boat to reach Mumbai.
The official said the Anti-Terrorism Court in Islamabad which is holding the trial at Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi, also summoned four witnesses for the next hearing. The court adjourned the hearing till July 8.
In a hearing last month, the company's general manager said the firm had sold the engines to absconding accused Khan, a shadowy LeT organiser and financier from Karachi.

Khan and nine other co-accused, said to be either trainers or facilitators of the terrorists who launched the attack in Mumbai, had been declared "proclaimed offenders or fugitives" by the anti-terrorism court.

Yesterday, Lakhvi was exempted from appearing in-person in the case after the LeT operations commander cited "serious threats to his life".
While 55-year-old Lakhvi has been released on bail, six other accused -- Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younis Anjum -- have been lodged in Adiala Jail for nearly six years for planning and executing the Mumbai attack in November, 2008 that killed 166 people.