Appeal against bail for Mumbai terror suspect

A prosecutor in Pakistan said on Friday that he would challenge a court order granting bail to the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

Special public prosecutor Abu Zar Peerzada said he would appeal to the High Court to cancel the bail granted to Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi by an anti-terrorism court.

On Thursday, a judge granted bail to the chief suspect, who is accused of being behind the siege on India's commercial capital.

Judge Kausar Abbas found that there was not enough evidence to keep Lakhvi in custody, according to a defense lawyer.

Lakhvi was one of seven people put on trial in Pakistan for assisting in the deadly siege in the Indian city, which left 166 people dead.

The court case had made no progress to date and there was also a blanket ban on media reporting of the trial.

India has blamed the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba for the terror attacks.

India's External Affairs Ministry spokesman, Syed Akbaruddin, urged Pakistan to reverse Thursday's decision to grant bail, referring to the Peshawar school massacre earlier this week.

"Given the scale of the tragedy that Pakistan itself has faced in recent days," he said in a statement, "it is incumbent on it to realize that no compromise can ever be made with terrorists."

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on the school on Tuesday, in which 148 people were killed, many of them children.

lw/pfd (AP, AFP)