RAWALPINDI, Dec 3: The accused in the Mumbai attack case told an anti-terrorism court on Saturday that because of certain reasons their lawyers were not willing to be part of the judicial panel that would interview key officials and witnesses in India.

The panel will interview a magistrate who recorded Ajmal Kasab’s confession, investigation officers and doctors who conducted autopsies on the bodies of attackers and those killed in the attack.

They requested the court to provide them defence counsel at the government expense to cross-question prosecution witnesses in India.

During the last hearing, the court was informed that the Mumbai High Court chief justice had nominated Chief Metropolitan Magistrate S.S. Shinde as presiding officer of a judicial commission set up to investigate the attack and the prosecution had sought passports and other documents of the defence counsel for the issuance of a notification for the Pakistani judicial panel.

ATC Judge Shahid Rafique is hearing the case in Adiala jail against the accused Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hammad Amin Saddiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younas Anjum.

In their applications submitted to the court, the accused said their lawyers had refused to plead their case in India because of security reasons.

They said other lawyers were demanding millions of rupees for fighting their case in India.

Defence counsel Khawaja Sultan and Malik Rafique said the government had not notified any judge or magistrate who would record the statement of prosecution witnesses in India, adding that after the issuance of the notification for the panel they
would examine its legal position.

FIA’s senior public prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali assured the court that the government would bear all travelling and other expenses and provide official accommodation to the defence counsel in India. He said the government would issue a
notification for the judicial panel before Dec 10, the next date of hearing. The court asked the defence counsel to submit their passports and other documents so that arrangements for the judicial panel’s departure to India could be finalised.

Chaudhry Zulfiqar told Dawn if the defence counsel refused to go to India the accused might submit their questions to the judicial panel under section 505 of the CPC. “Any member of the panel, including prosecutors, can question the witnesses in
India on behalf of the defence counsel,” he added.