India's Supreme Court rejects Mumbai bomber's mercy plea

MUMBAI, July 21 (UPI) -- India's Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a mercy plea from a suspect accused of financing a series of bombings in Mumbai 22 years ago.

Yakub Memon is scheduled for execution later this month, the BBC reports. Authorities say he was an accountant who played a key role in the 1993 attacks that killed 257 people and wounded 713.

Eight members of his family had been accused of involvement in the bombings, but three were acquitted. The accused masterminds, Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon, have been unaccounted for since the attacks, which were allegedly perpetrated as revenge for Muslims killed in riots.

Memon is in detention in the city of Nagpur, in the state of Maharashtra. Prior to Tuesday's hearing, the state government announced it would hang Memon on July 30, the BBC reports.

According to Amnesty International, India sentenced 64 people to death last year but performed no executions.

In 2013, authorities executed Mohammed Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri man accused of a 2001 attack on Indian parliament that killed 14 people. He reportedly denied involvement and requested clemency, which was rejected.

The year prior, Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the only surviving gunman in the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 160 people, was hanged in Pune, India.

The Times of India reports that trial courts issued 1,617 death sentences between 2000 and 2015, but that India's high courts usually acquit or commute such sentences to life imprisonment.