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Mumbai Gunman's Lawyer Bounced, Delaying Trial
By Harry Kimball
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Posted Apr 15, 09 7:56 AM CDT
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(Newser)
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The trial of the one surviving Pakistani accused in November’s devastating attack in Mumbai started and stopped today when the judge dismissed the defendant's lawyer, the Times of London reports. Azam Amir Kasab’s court-appointed attorney was not permitted to defend him because she had previously discussed representing a victim of the attack, the judge ruled. The trial will not resume until a replacement is found.
The search for a new lawyer will begin tomorrow. “I don't want to appoint a junior or raw lawyer for him,” the judge said. Concern about an attack from “across the border”—Pakistan—led India to conduct the trial in the jail where Kasab is held, in a special courtroom built inside a bombproof 50-foot-tall steel-and-concrete cage. Officials say they doubt that Kasab will give up much information. “We have a limb, not the brain,” one said.