German Bakery blast:HC to hear death confirmation appeal first

The Bombay High Court today said it would hear the applications seeking re-investigation and retrial in the 2010 German Bakery blast case only after hearing the death confirmation petition of the lone convict Himayat Baig.
"We will first hear the confirmation petition and appeal filed by Baig against the conviction on merits. After that we will consider the intervening applications," said the division bench of Justices P V Hardas and P N Deshmukh.
The HC would decide date for final hearing on January 8.
Baig himself has filed one of the intervening applications seeking a re-trial. The second one is filed by journalist Ashish Khetan, seeking a fresh probe by an independent agency alleging fabrication of evidence and tutoring of witnesses by Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad.

Khetan claims he has some video recordings which casts a serious doubt on Baig's conviction. The video shows conversations between Khetan and five prosecution witnesses.
"The witnesses stated that they were coerced and tutored into making false statements before the court....Before they were to depose before the trial court, they were all kept separately for several days and tutored by the ATS personnel as to the nature of the recoveries and statements that were relied on to convict the accused in the trial," the application alleges.
On February 13, 2010 a bomb exploded inside the bakery killing 17 persons including five foreigners and injuring 58 others. In April this year, the sessions court in Pune awarded death penalty to Baig.