WASHINGTON: Following the lawsuit filed by the American victims of 26/11 attacks, a US court has issued summons to Pakistan’s ISI chief Shuja Pasha and terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba’s top guns, including its founder Hafiz Sayed.
It is the first American court action of the kind against the ISI and it comes within days of the lawsuit filed by the relatives of Rabbi Gavriel Noah Holtzberg and his pregnant wife Rivka, who were among those gunned down in Mumbai.
Besides Pasha, the New York court has summoned three others connected with the ISI -- former ISI director general Nadeem Taj, Major Iqbal and Major Samir Ali. The top Lashkar functionaries issued notices include Commander Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi, Sajid Majid and LeT intelligence chief Azam Cheema.
James Kreindler, the attorney for five families of victims including the Holtzbergs, believes that this is the first lawsuit that directly accuses the ISI and its officers of aiding and abetting LeT in the Mumbai attacks.
“The ISI has long nurtured and used international terrorist groups, including the LeT to accomplish its goals and has provided material support to the LeT and other international terrorist groups,” the 24-page federal complaint said. “We’ve been looking at this for a while, and as more information has come out, it made it very clear that the ISI has been intimately involved in planning and supporting the terrorist acts,” Kreindler said.