US Court rejects Tahawwur Rana's final plea against extradition to India

26/11 Mumbai terror attack accused Tahawwur Rana's final plea seeking a stay on his extradition to India was rejected by the US Supreme Court, reports said. He is expected to be handed over to India without further complications.

 

64-year-old Rana had submitted an "Emergency Application For Stay Pending Litigation of Petition For Writ of Habeas Corpus" on February 27 before the court. However, after it was denied, Rana reportedly renewed his plea with Elena Kagan, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the US and Circuit Justice for the Ninth Circuit.

 

Tahawwur Rana, a Canadian citizen of Pak origin, reportedly requested that the renewed application be directed to Chief Justice Roberts. A notice on the Supreme Court website said, "Application denied by the Court," said NDTV.

 

 

Rana used to live in Chicago before he was convicted in 2011 and later sentenced to 13 years in prison. He is currently placed in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, reports said.

 

Rana had argued that his extradition to India violates United States law and the United Nations Convention Against Torture "because there are substantial grounds for believing that, if extradited to India, the petitioner will be in danger of being subjected to torture." The application also said that his “severe medical conditions” render extradition to Indian detention facilities a “de facto" death sentence in this case. It cited medical records from July 2024 that confirm Rana has multiple “acute and life-threatening diagnoses”, including multiple documented heart attacks, Parkinson’s disease with cognitive decline, a mass suggestive of bladder cancer, stage 3 chronic kidney disease, and a history of chronic asthma, and multiple COVID-19 infections.

 

US President Donald Trump, during a joint press conference with Prime Minister Modi in the White House in February 2025, announced that Rana’s extradition to India has been approved.

 

Tahawwur Rana and 26/11 Mumbai terror plot

 

The United States had found Tahawwur Rana guilty of conspiring to provide material support to the terrorist plot in Denmark and providing "material support" to Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Taiba terrorists that was responsible for the attacks in Mumbai.

 

Rana is known to be associated with Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators of the 26/11 attacks. Headley conducted a recce of Mumbai before the attacks by posing as an employee of Rana’s immigration consultancy.

 

A total of 166 people, including six Americans, were killed in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks in which 10 Pakistani terrorists laid a more than 60-hour siege, attacking and killing people at iconic and vital locations in Mumbai.

 

 

 

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