The Hindu : Anees Ibrahim's arrest

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 12, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Anees Ibrahim's arrest

THERE IS A whale of a difference between arrest and extradition, but India has reasons to be pleased that Anees Ibrahim, who is wanted in a long laundry list of terrorist crimes, has been held in the UAE. The notorious Dawood Ibrahim's younger brother, Anees would have figured pretty high up in any roster of the country's most wanted men, having been one of the key conspirators in the 1993 Mumbai blasts. The CBI believes that it was Anees Ibrahim who coordinated the supply of RDX explosives that were used for the blasts. Reports from the Middle East suggest that Anees Ibrahim, who is wanted in Dubai for crimes such as cheating and fraud, was picked up on December 3 and is being interrogated for these suspected criminal violations in the Emirate. The arrest of the brother of someone as influential as Dawood Ibrahim speaks volumes about the official sensitivity towards terrorism issues in the United Arab Emirates which, particularly after September 11, has made a concerted effort to crack down on international terrorists and crime syndicates using its territory as a safe haven. His arrest provides what is at once both a challenge and an opportunity for India — the extradition of one of the main accused in the Mumbai blasts who is also wanted in a number of other cases of murder and extortion.

The process of getting him back home and to justice is not going to be easy. On the plus side is the fact that India has an extradition treaty with the UAE which, on occasion, has displayed a remarkably cooperative attitude in this matter. Interestingly, there have been just three deportations of terrorists to India following September 11, all of them from the UAE. In June this year, Muthappa Rai, an underworld don from Karnataka with some links to Dawood Ibrahim, was brought home. A little earlier, Raju Anadkot, another suspected criminal accused of a string of crimes, was returned. But the real surprise was over the speed with which the alleged mastermind of the attack on the American Center at Kolkata, Aftab Ansari, was deported. It took place so quickly and effortlessly that it fuelled speculation that the speed could be related to the diplomatic pressure applied by the U.S., which had its own reasons for booking those behind the Kolkata attack.

Nevertheless, the CBI still has a job to do in establishing Anees Ibrahim's identity and role in the Mumbai bomb blasts to the satisfaction of the UAE. It was only last year that the UAE, to India's great disappointment, allowed Abu Salem to escape after he was arrested and detained there for a few days. Initially, the UAE sought more information from India about the mafia don, who is also accused of planning and executing the Mumbai blasts, but finally let him go on the ground that the CBI had failed to furnish the conclusive proof that was needed to further detain him. Just as Abu Salem was a year ago, Anees Ibrahim is under custody with a Pakistani passport and a different identity. While his arrest establishes the UAE's commitment to cracking down on the use of its territory by criminals, in India's eyes it is his deportation that will be a truer and more consistent reflection of a commitment towards the campaign against international terrorism. It is exactly this argument that India has employed with Portugal ever since Abu Salem was arrested in Lisbon this September. India does not have an extradition treaty with Portugal and has used the good offices of countries such as the U.S. to help in getting Salem back home. Success in having criminals sent back home to justice does not depend on legal considerations alone. They depend on a complex set of issues which includes who asks for it and how forcefully the request is made. In the Anees Ibrahim case, India's first test will be to do whatever it can to dissuade the UAE from releasing him from detention. The second test will be to do whatever it should to see that he is brought back home.

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