CHICAGO – The federal government's star witness was expected to reveal more potentially damaging details on Tuesday about the alleged close ties between Pakistan's main intelligence agency and the militant group blamed for the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks.
David Coleman Headley returned to witnesses stand in the terrorism trail of a Chicago businessman accused of collaborating in the three-day siege of India's largest city — a day after gave a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and described how he was recruited by a member of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, known as ISI, to take part in the Mumbai plot.
As the government's first and main witness in the trial of his longtime friend Tahawwur Rana, Headley's testimony outlining links between the ISI and Lashkar could inflame tensions between Pakistan and India and place even more pressure on the already frayed U.S. and Pakistani relations.
It also could add to the questions about Pakistan's commitment to catch terrorists and the ISI's connections to Pakistan-based terror groups, especially after Osama bin Laden was found hiding out earlier this month in a military garrison town outside of Islamabad.
Headley already pleaded guilty to laying the groundwork for the Mumbai attacks that killed more than 160 people including six Americans, and he agreed to testify against Rana to avoid the death penalty, making him one of the most valuable U.S. government counterterrorism witnesses.
"Headley's testimony is a nail in the coffin of U.S.-Pakistani strategic cooperation," said Bruce Riedel, a former White House adviser on Middle Eastern and South Asian issues. "Until now his commentary has gotten very little attention outside India, now it will finally get the attention it deserves here."
The Pakistani government has denied the ISI orchestrated the Mumbai attacks, and a senior ISI official said Tuesday that the agency has no links to the terrorists behind the rampage. When asked about the testimony being heard in Chicago, the officer said "it is nothing." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because his agency doesn't allow its operatives to be named in the media.
On Monday, Headley, a Pakistani-American, spent hours detailing the formulation of the attacks and Rana's alleged help in providing cover for his surveillance activities in India.
Speaking so softly at times that attorneys had to remind him to speak louder, Headley said he has been involved with Lashkar-e-Taiba for more than a decade, but he wasn't working with someone in the ISI until years later after he was arrested by tribal police near Afghanistan. It was then he said he met a major in the ISI and told him what he and Lashkar were planning.
This ISI major, Headley said, was "very pleased" with what he heard and asked if Headley would work with one of his ISI associates. Headley agreed and said he was released from custody. Headley soon received a call from a man he referred to during his testimony as "Major Iqbal," which the U.S. government says is an alias. Headley said he then met Iqbal in a safe house in Lahore, Pakistan and described his plans with Lashkar and his assignment to take videos of Mumbai in preparation of an operation.
Headley said ISI provided financial and military assistance to Lashkar, and he assumed they worked under the same umbrella. He said Iqbal and his Lashkar handler, Sajid Mir, were in communication, but he would meet with them separately in Pakistan. Headley said when he would take videos of sights in Mumbai, he would first share them with Iqbal and then with Mir.
"All these things I discussed with Major Iqbal, I went over it with Sajid again," Headley told jurors.
Before moving to Mumbai in late 2006, Headley said he first came to Chicago, met with Rana and explained the plot in hopes of persuading Rana to let him open a branch of his immigration services business as a cover. With Rana's help, Headley said he set up an immigration consulting business in Mumbai and secured work visas to travel in and out of India..
Rana, a Canadian citizen who has lived in Chicago for years, has pleaded not guilty in the case. His name is the seventh one on the federal indictment, and the only defendant in custody. Among the six others charged in absentia are Mir and Iqbal.
Rana is also accused of helping arrange travel and other help for Headley, who planned a separate attack that never happened on a Danish newspaper, which printed cartoons of Prophet Muhammad that angered Muslim.
Headley and Rana, both 50, met as classmates at a prestigious military boarding school in Pakistan and have stayed in touch. Defense attorneys told jurors their client was taken advantage of by his friend and did not know what was in store. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker said Rana was not duped and knew of the plans, both in Mumbai and Denmark.
Defense attorneys were expected scrutinize Headley's credibility as a witness, saying he has been motivated to change his story and that he was working for the U.S. government even as he said he was working for Lashkar and ISI.
Headley, born Daood Gilani in the U.S., has also been an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration after a drug conviction.
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