The trial has started for the Pakistani defendant believed to be the only surviving gunman in the Mumbai attacks. The prosecutor is arguing that the assault was part of a criminal conspiracy hatched in Pakistan. The special public prosecutor claims the sophistication of the attack suggested the involvement of intelligence professionals in Pakistan. He made his submissions in the trial court on Friday. Mohammed Ajmal Kasab is charged with 12 criminal counts, including murder and waging war against India. Prosecutors say Kasab and nine other gunmen, who were killed during the siege, are responsible for the deaths of 166 people and the injury of 304 more. The alleged militant on trial in India for last year's Mumbai attacks wants to retract his confession, claiming it was extracted by torture, his defence lawyer told reporters on Friday. “On his instruction, a retraction application has been filed, retracting the so-called alleged confession,” said Abbas Kazmi, who is defending Pakistani national Mohammed Ajmal Kasab. “He's going to plead not guilty,” he added. The lawyer told reporters that Kasab claimed the confession, made to a local magistrate while he was in police custody, was “extracted out of coercion and force and it was not a voluntary confession.” He quoted Kasab as claiming he had been “physically tortured.” The court rejected the bid by the lone militant, suspect captured during last year's attacks on Mumbai to have his case transferred to a juvenile court. Kazmi said his client had told him that he “had not even reached the age of 17” when the attacks took place last November. “He is still under 18. In such circumstances he is deemed to be a juvenile and this court has no jurisdiction to try this case,” Kazmi told the trial court. “The case should be transferred to the appropriate competent juvenile court. As a juvenile he should be treated as such... we cannot proceed further”. But public prosecutor Ujwal Nikam rejected the submission, saying that in both Kasab's “confession statement” to the police and on transfer to jail, he had said he was 21”. Rejecting the application, the judge added: “In my considered opinion, the plea is frivolous and intended to delay the trial.” Tahiliyani however did not rule out examining the matter again in the future. Kasab faces a string of charges including “waging war” on India, murder, attempted murder and kidnapping. He faces the death penalty if convicted of taking part in the attacks, which left more than 160 dead and hundreds more wounded. “All the accused persons, including the wanted and deceased persons, are the products of a strategic terror culture,” Nikam told the court. Nikam said there was “sufficient evidence on the record to conclude that this criminal conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan” by the LeT and unnamed “supporting agencies” -- a veiled reference to Pakistan's spy service. A Pakistani claiming to be a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative has “confessed” to his role in the 26/11 Mumbai carnage, saying four other leaders of the terror group were also involved. Shahid Jamil Riaz confesses that along with him the four men were LeT commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, its communications specialist Zarar Shah, Hamad Ameen Sadiq and Hamza alias Abu Alqa. All four are in custody but have not been formally charged with involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that claimed the lives of over 166 people, including 26 foreigners. They had been picked up in a crackdown by Pakistani security forces in December 2008.
