Convicted terrorist asks for immediate release from prison before extradition to India

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A convicted terrorist from Chicago is asking for immediate release from prison, even though he has already been cleared for extradition to India where authorities have charged him as a plotter in the 2008 terror attack in Mumbai.

Tahawwur Rana claims his extradition would violate the U.S.-India extradition treaty, saying he has been tried and acquitted in Chicago federal district court on the identical conduct that India wants to prosecute him for in a death penalty case.

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For several days in November 2008, heavily armed commandos from a Pakistani terror group held Mumbai under siege. When it ended, 166 innocent victims were dead, including six Americans.

Rana and accomplice David Coleman Headley, also a Pakistani-Chicagoan, were arrested. Headley pleaded guilty and cooperated against Rana during a Chicago trial. Rana was convicted of supporting to Pakistani terror group and a plot in Denmark, but was found not guilty of a role in the Mumbai attack despite what prosecutors considered solid evidence.

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After serving 10 years for the Denmark plot, he was cleared by a U.S. judge to be sent back to India to stand trial for the Mumbai massacre. But in a newly filed 34-page motion for immediate release from prison, Rana's attorneys said the Chicago transcripts and exhibits "fail to establish probable cause that he committed the offenses for which India has charged him."

If Rana is extradited, his attorney said it will be the first time in American history that a person tried and acquitted domestically will face a second trial for the same charge overseas.

The Mumbai massacre is considered to be India's September 11. Because so many of the terrorists were killed in 2008, Rana is considered by Indian officials to be the best hope for somebody to finally pay a stiff price for the attack.