Convicted terrorist asks for immediate release from prison before extradition to India

A convicted terrorist from Chicago is asking for immediate release from prison, even though he has already been cleared for extradition to India where authorities have charged him as a plotter in the 2008 terror attack in Mumbai.

Tahawwur Rana claims his extradition would violate the U.S.-India extradition treaty, saying he has been tried and acquitted in Chicago federal district court on the identical conduct that India wants to prosecute him for in a death penalty case.

For several days in November 2008, heavily armed commandos from a Pakistani terror group held Mumbai under siege. When it ended, 166 innocent victims were dead, including six Americans.

Rana and accomplice David Coleman Headley, also a Pakistani-Chicagoan, were arrested. Headley pleaded guilty and cooperated against Rana during a Chicago trial. Rana was convicted of supporting to Pakistani terror group and a plot in Denmark, but was found not guilty of a role in the Mumbai attack despite what prosecutors considered solid evidence.

Read more: ABC 7 Chicago