Mumbai suspect's trial begins

MUMBAI, India - The trial of the man police say is the only surviving gunman in the bloody Mumbai siege began yesterday, with the prosecutor unleashing innuendo against Pakistan's military and intelligence establishments and the defendant's attorney alleging his client was tortured into confessing.

Special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said that Mohammed Ajmal Kasab had a direct hand in the deaths of 72 people in November and was part of "a criminal conspiracy hatched in Pakistan," which could not have been undertaken without training from "intelligence professionals" in Pakistan.

Nikam said the ultimate goal of the attack was the capture of Kashmir, which is divided between India and Pakistan; both countries claim the region and have fought two wars over it.

The attacks, Nikam maintained, were masterminded by the Muslim extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. He said investigations were ongoing to determine the scope of Pakistani involvement in the attack. Lashkar-e-Taiba is widely believed to have been created by Pakistani intelligence agencies in the 1980s to fight Indian rule in Kashmir.

Pakistani officials have acknowledged that the attacks were partly plotted on their soil and that Kasab is Pakistani, but they have repeatedly denied their intelligence agencies were involved in the attack.

Kasab is accused of being one of the 10 heavily armed gunmen who entered Mumbai by boat in November and launched a horrific three-day attack on two five-star hotels, a restaurant, a train station, and a Jewish center, killing more than 170 people, including six Americans, and injuring more than 300.

He is charged with 12 criminal counts, including murder and waging war against India. If convicted, he could face death by hanging.

Speaking to the Associated Press after the hearing, Nikam said Kasab underwent 31/2 months of intense training in different locations in Pakistan between December 2007 and November 2008. "We were told to climb a mountain with an empty stomach and a heavy bag," Kasab said in a confession before an Indian magistrate in February.

In that statement, Kasab also said he and his fellow recruits learned the essential skills of a jihadi: violence and prayer. They were instructed in the use of AK-47 assault rifles, hand grenades, and rocket launchers, and learned how to read maps and navigate at sea.

Kasab said in the confession that Mumbai had been targeted because it was a wealthy city and an attack would unleash "a reign of terror in India." He said his teachers instructed him to "kill Americans, British, and Israelis because these people are committing atrocities against Muslims."

Kasab's defense lawyer, Abbas Kazmi, asked the court to disregard the confession, saying it had been taken under duress.

Kazmi, who was appointed to defend Kasab only on Thursday, said the confession had been "extracted out of coercion and force. It was not a voluntary statement. He was physically tortured during custody."

Nikam said he hoped the case would be finished in six months, which would be extremely fast by the standards of major Indian trials.