India-Portugal Treaty helps Abu salem escape death Sentence

Mumbai Sept 8: A special TADA court in Mumbai yesterday has sentenced life term imprisonment to Abu Salem in 1993 Mumbai blast case.he was convicted with charges for helping terrorists by supplying arms and weapons.

The prosecutor has argued that he should be sentenced to death but the court has pronounced a maximum of 24-year jail.Sources say that he has escaped death sentence because of the terms of his extradition to India from Portugal.

India-Portugal Extradition Agreement

According to this treaty, criminals cannot be granted death sentence, a maximum of 25 years jail sentence can be issued. Portugal had abolished death sentence in 1867.

The treaty to extradite criminals between India and Portugal was signed by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2007 January.

Earlier the Portugal government in 2005 handed' over the criminal Abusalem to India. The Portuguese government has mandated that a clause that criminals cannot be subjected to the death sentence and the Indian government has said that it would resort to all legal means to restrict the sentence because of the independence of Judiciary.