MUMBAI, India – An Indian court on Tuesday found a man guilty of planting the most devastating of the 12 bombs that tore through Mumbai in 1993, in India's deadliest terrorist attacks.
Judge Pramod Kode found Abdul Turk, 40, guilty of leaving an explosive-laden jeep that killed 113 people and wounded 227 others in central Mumbai's crowded Century Bazar area. He left the jeep on the main road of the busy shopping and residential district.
A total of 257 people died when 12 bombs -- placed in scooters, cars, jeeps and hotel rooms -- went off in a two-hour period in Mumbai, India's commercial and entertainment capital, formerly called Bombay.
Turk, who was convicted of driving the jeep to the market and of helping to build several other bombs, could face the death penalty.
The judge has said he will hand out sentences once all the verdicts have been given, a process that could take up to two months.
So far the court has convicted seven other people -- three of carrying out the bombings and four members of the Memon family of funding the plot. Three other family members were acquitted. Their brother, Tiger Memon, who has fled the country, is the alleged mastermind of the bombings.
The blasts were apparently carried out in revenge for the demolition of a 16th-century mosque in northern India by Hindu nationalists. The mosque's destruction sparked religious riots in many parts of the country that left more than 800 people dead, mostly Muslims.
The prosecution in the bombing trial, one of India's lengthiest, began on June 6, 1995. Hearings ended in January 2003 after 686 witnesses gave testimony that filled 13,000 pages. The delay in the judgment was blamed largely on procedural matters.
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