Pakistani firm sold Yamaha boat engines to 26/11 Mumbai attackers

Islamabad: A Pakistani company had sold eight Japanese Yamaha engines to one of the 2008 Mumbai attack facilitators who supplied them to terrorists, including Ajmal Kasab, for reaching Mumbai in a small boat, a senior manager of the firm on Wednesday told an anti-terrorism court. The company’s general manager, one of the two witnesses who testified before the court which is hearing the case at the high security Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, said the firm had sold the engines to absconding accused Amjad Khan, a shadowy LeT organiser and financier from Karachi, a court official told PTI. [caption id=“attachment_1982941” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Pigeons fly outside the Taj Mahal Hotel, which was one of the targets of the 26/11 attacks, in Mumbai 21 November, 2012. Reuters[/caption] The Yamaha engines were used by terrorists Kasab and others in their small boat to reach Mumbai. The second witness, a customs official, testified before the court that the department issued customs clearance certificate of the engines imported from Japan to Khan after he paid the customs duty. Two more witnesses were also present but could not testify as the court, conducting the trial of seven accused in the case, including LeT operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, adjourned the hearing till Thursday. While 55-year-old Lakhvi is on bail, six other accused - Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younis Anjum - have been in Adiala Jail for nearly six years in connection with planning and executing the Mumbai attack in November, 2008 that left 166 people killed. Mumbai attack mastermind Lakhvi, who has been on bail since April 10, did not appear for the hearing despite no decision by court on his petition to exempt him from in person appearance during the proceedings in the case. Amjad Khan and nine other co-accused, said to be either trainers or facilitators of the terrorists who launched the attacks in Mumbai, had been declared “proclaimed offenders or fugitives” by the anti-terrorism court. Khan, who figured in majority of dossiers provided to Pakistan by India, allegedly played a key role in arranging and providing funds to the ten terrorists who attacked Mumbai. These 20 suspects were named in a charge sheet filed in the anti-terrorism court in 2009. PTI