By Mubasshir Mushtaq
MUMBAI, India
India’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the death penalty awarded to a man convicted for a series of bomb blasts in 1993.
A three-judge apex court bench dismissed the plea by Yakub Memon to have his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
Memon, a chartered accountant by profession and brother of Ibrahim Memon, the alleged fugitive mastermind of the 1993 serial bombings, had sought a review of a March 2013 Supreme Court ruling challenging his death sentence.
He claimed he was not actually involved in the execution of the bombings, which killed 257 people.
Ibrahim Memon is considered the right-hand man of India’s no. 1 fugitive, gangster Dawood Ibrahim, who India says is in Pakistan.
Yakub Memon was convicted under the controversial and now repealed Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act for criminal conspiracy and financing his co-conspirators’ trip to Pakistan for explosives training.
The Supreme Court had awarded Memon the death sentence for his “commanding position and the crime of utmost gravity.”
Memon’s conviction was based on retracted confessions of approvers and some of the other accused in the country’s first serial bombings.
Memon is held at Nagpur city jail in Maharashtra state, where he is reportedly not in good health.
Memon was arrested in July 1994 in Nepal, where he had flown from Karachi carrying a briefcase which reportedly had documents establishing Pakistan’s hand in the bomb blasts.
Memon has spent more than 20 years in Indian prison. His only remaining legal option is to file a curative petition in the Supreme Court to challenge his death penalty.
