May 16, 2011 With security on high, the jury selection process has begun for the trial of Tahawwur Hussain Rana in connection with the Mumbai Terror Attack back in November 2008. David Coleman Headley, a Pakistan American is being looked upon as the prosecution's star witness.
The trial will take place in Chicago, Illinois at the Dirksen US Court House. Tahawwur Hussain Rana is being held under tight security.
Headley was allowed to travel under the guise of working for Rana, an old friend from his youth growing up in Pakistan, who owns an immigration business here in the United States. Headley's mother is an American, his father a Pakistani diplomat. Headley changed his name from Daood Gilani back in 2006 so that he could more easily scout out targets for the attack in Mumbai that was being planned in November of 2008.
Connections between LeT, Pakistans' ISI and terrorists organizations are surfacing as more information was uncovered through interviews by India's investigators last year. India is watching for and hoping to find solid evidence linking Pakistans' ISI and other terror groups. Headley alleges that the Pakistani ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) were heavily involved in planning the November terror attacks in Mumbai, attacks which killed 166 people, including 6 Americans.
"What we would be looking at is evidence against the ISI that will corroborate what India has been saying all these months," a top official told IANS.
Also indicted is Ilyas IKashmiri, commander of Harakat-ul Jihad Islami (HuJI) as well as Major Iqbal (real name unknown). Headley's LeT "handler" in the Mumbai attack was one "Major Iqbal", who is believed to be a retired ISI officer. In the indictment his name is listed as unknown.
Sajid Mir with LeT and Ilyas Kashmiri with HuJI were charged in absentia along with several other persons who remain unnamed by news services at this time. Headley's LeT handler Major Iqbal is said to be a retired ISI officer and Ilyas Kashmiri is thought to be the operational chief for Al Qaeda in Pakistan.
Kashmiri also is alleged to have given Headley instructions for carrying out an attack on the Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Said cartoons enraged many islamists, inciting violence in several countries.
Attorneys for Rana are claiming that he was tricked into helping Headley based on their friendship that had developed in their youth while they were attending a military school in Pakistan. Phone calls were secretly recorded as well as coded email messages that were exchanged between them.
Rana is a Canadian national who has lived in the Chicago area for many years and has no criminal record. U.S. prosecutors are saying Rana aided Headley in his efforts to serve as a scout for various terrorist groups while helping lay the groundwork for the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. Headley has already pleaded guilty to charges of laying said groundwork in return for removal of the death penalty.
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