US President Donald Trump has agreed to extradite a Pakistani national accused of involvement in the 2008 terror attacks in the Indian financial capital of Mumbai, he and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Thursday.
Trump called Tahawwur Rana "one of the very evil people of the world," saying he is "going to be going back to India to face justice."
"We're giving a very violent man, it seems to me. And I don't know that he's been convicted yet or will be, but let's assume he's a pretty violent person. We're giving him back to India immediately, and there are more to follow, because we have quite a few requests, and we work with India on crime, and we want to make it good for India, and it's very important. So that kind of a relationship is very important to us," he told reporters as he hosted Modi at the White House.
Modi said he is "very grateful" to Trump for his decision to extradite Rana, whom he said "carried out genocide in India."
"That criminal is now going to be handed over to India, and I'm grateful to President Trump for this, and appropriate actions will be taken in the courts in India," he said.
More than 160 people were killed and over 300 others injured in November 2008, when militants carried out a coordinated multi-day bomb and gun attack that targeted multiple sites in Mumbai. The complex attack was subsequently attributed to Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba by the US and India.
Rana was arrested in the US the following year, and was convicted two years later of aiding Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has been a designated terrorist organization in the US since 2001.
