1st LD Writethru: Indian Supreme Court rejects Muslim terrorist's final plea to stay his execution

India's Supreme Court Wednesday rejected Muslim terrorist Yakub Memon's last-ditch plea to stay his execution, scheduled for Thursday.

The 53-year-old was sentenced to death for his role in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts in which nearly 260 people were killed.

After daylong hearing, a three-judge bench upheld Yakub's death penalty, rejecting his lawyer's argument that proper procedure was not correctly followed in disposing of his curative petition by the apex court some days back as well as the death warrant issued in April.

In fact, Yakub's lawyer had told the court that the death warrant for his execution is "illegal" as it was issued in April, before he had exhausted all his legal options. His curative petition had not been heard by the Supreme Court then and it was rejected last week.

However, the apex court turned down all the arguments put forward by the terrorist's lawyer.

Within moments of the judgment, the Governor of Maharashtra also rejected his mercy plea, paving the way for his execution at a jail in the western state of Maharashtra's city of Nagpur on his 54th birthday.

Earlier in the day, Yakub filed a fresh mercy plea with Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, who had rejected it last year. His lawyer said the previous petition was filed by one of his brothers on his behalf.

The terrorist was sentenced to death for his role in the serial blasts in Mumbai, along with 10 others. Except Yakub, the clemency pleas of others were all accepted and their death sentences were commuted to life in jail.

Yakub's brother Tiger Memon and underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, the two main accused in the case, have been on the run since the deadly terror attacks. Endi