The US Supreme Court has rejected 26/11 Mumbai terror attack accused Tahawwur Rana’s emergency plea against his impending extradition to India, prompting him to submit a renewed application.

The 64-year-old Canadian national of Pakistani origin is lodged in the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Los Angeles.

Rana had submitted an “emergency application for stay pending litigation of petition for writ of habeas corpus” on February 27 with Elena Kagan, associate justice of
the Supreme Court of the US and Circuit Justice for the Ninth Circuit.

A note dated March 6 on the Supreme Court website said that “Application… denied by Justice Kagan”. Rana’s lawyer has requested that his renewed application be directed to Chief Justice John Roberts.

Rana had in his emergency application argued that he would be tortured in Indian jails since he is a Muslim of Pakistani origin. Rana had filed the emergency application on February 27 and a supplement to it on March 2.

In his emergency application, Rana had sought a “stay of his extradition and surrender to India pending litigation (including exhaustion of all appeals)”.

In that petition, Rana had argued that his extradition to India would violate US laws and the United Nations Convention Against Torture “because there are substantial grounds for believing that, if extradited to India, the petitioner will be in danger of being subjected to torture”.

The application also said that his “severe medical conditions” rendered extradition to Indian detention facilities a “de facto” death sentence.