Court furious over Kasab's confession video leak

Mumbai: The Mumbai court trying the 26/11 attack Thursday urged police to take action against the officer who leaked Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab's confessional video to a TV channel in Mumbai.

A 67-minute video CD of Kasab's confession, recorded by police in a hospital soon after his arrest during the last year's terror attacks in Mumbai, was repeatedly telecast by TV9 last week.

Taking a serious note of the leakage, Judge ML Tahilyani said the concerned officer had committed a theft and a "breach of trust" by giving the CD of the sensitive confession by Kasab recorded by the police on November 27, 2008.

He directed the police to file its reply to an application moved by defence lawyer SG Abbas Kazmi Wednesday seeking the court's directives to take the confession on the record as it was neither a part of the charge sheet nor the evidence.

Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said the confession was recorded during Kasab's interrogation at Nair Hospital.

He argued that a statement recorded by police is part of interrogation and investigations and is not admissible in the court.

Tahilyani said the matter was "very sensitive" taking into consideration the international importance of the case.

"In my opinion, since the interrogation part does not come under the purview of the court, I would suggest that the police should take serious note of this matter," Tahilyani said.

"The statement recorded during interrogation is the property of the police and not a personal one. It has to be in the custody of police. If such a CD is leaked out to some channel then it is very serious. This amounts to theft and breach of criminal trust," Tahilyani said.

He said there were three options before the court.

"Either we should accept the application of Kazmi and take on record the statement or issue contempt notice against the concerned TV channel or take suo moto cognizance or the third option to consider it as an offence and take action against the concerned officers."

The judge reserved his order on the matter till Friday.