Here's why Abu Salem cannot be awarded death penalty

(FILES) This file photo taken on May 21, 2007 shows Indian gangster Abu Salem (C-Red shirt) being escorted by police personnel at a railway station in New Delhi. The 1993 bomb blasts in Mumbai killed more than 250 people in retaliation for anti-Muslim violence a few months earlier. / AFP PHOTO / MANPREET ROMANA

NEW DELHI: A Special TADA Court on Friday found deported mafia don Abu Salem guilty in the March 1993 Mumbai serials blasts which claimed 257 lives. Salem, who was extradited from Portugal in 2005, was charged with supplying the arms and ammunition, including the deadly RDX, which were used in the blasts. Besides Salem, four others have also been found guilty under various charges in the same case, as the Special Court delivers its verdict on Friday. The court has also convicted Tahir Merchant, Riyaz Siddiqui Abdul Rashid Khan and Kareemullah Khan. Abdul Qayyum was acquitted by the court. Abu Salem was involved in several murder, extortion and other cases. He was later arrested in 2002 in Portugal and extradited to India. He was tried and convicted in some cases and was awarded life imprisonment in 2015. Salem cannot be tried for offences other than those which were mentioned in the extradition request and offences inviting death penalty as the Portugal government had laid a pre-condition that he will not be extradited if he was to be awarded capital punishment. He was extradited on the basis of an undertaking given by previous NDA government after then Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and Minister of State for External Affairs Omar Abdullah promised that he would not be awarded death penalty. "He cannot be awarded death sentence as we have already given an undertaking to Portugal government according to the rule of specialty," NS Khadayat, former assistant director Interpol India, said. In the first leg of the trial that concluded in 2007, the TADA court had convicted 100 accused in the case, while 23 persons were acquitted. The trial of the seven accused -- Abu Salem, Mustafa Dossa, Karimullah Khan, Firoz Abdul Rashid Khan, Riyaz Siddiqui, Tahir Merchant and Abdul Quayyum -- were separated from the main case as they were arrested at the time of conclusion of the main trial. (with inputs from PTI)