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Headley says ISI helped LeT carry out 26/11
CHICAGO: The accused in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, David Headley, told a Chicago jury Monday that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) supports the extremist group he worked with on the deadly siege.
David Coleman Headley, the Pakistani American, has testified that ISI provided financial, military and moral support to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). “I assumed these groups operated under the same umbrella - they coordinated with each other,” Headley told the jury as he described his militant path and the bloody 60-hour siege of India’s largest city that left 166 people dead.
Headley described his relationship with an ISI handler identified as “Major Iqbal” who gave him $25,000 to help cover the cost of his surveillance work. “I told him what kind of (terrorist) training I did and he mentioned he was part of the Lashkar” Headley said.
Headley testified that after he told Iqbal of a 2003 plot he was working on, Iqbal asked him “to do something that was more important, which was intelligence work for the ISI.”
Headley formally admitted to 12 terror charges in March 2010 after prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty or to allow him to be extradited to India, Pakistan or Denmark to face related charges.
He was testifying at the trial of an old friend from military school in Pakistan - Chicago businessman Tahawwur Hussain Rana - who stands accused of providing Headley with a cover and for acting as a messenger. While US prosecutors named ISI officers as co-conspirators in the Mumbai attacks, it remains unclear whether they were acting independently or with the approval and aid of senior officials.
The Washington-born son of a former Pakistani diplomat and an American woman, Headley admitted to spending months checking out sites for the Mumbai siege and plotting to kill a Danish cartoonist. In a plot that reads like a movie thriller, Headley spent two years scouting Mumbai, even taking boat tours around the city’s harbor to identify landing sites for the attackers and befriending Bollywood stars as part of his cover.
Rana, who holds a Canadian citizenship, insisted after his 2009 arrest that he was a pacifist “duped” into letting his old friend use his immigration services company as a cover.
In the opening statements Monday, his lawyers tried to undermine Headley’s credibility and insisted that Rana thought he was helping the ISI, not extremists. But prosecutors said Rana knew exactly what he was doing, and told jurors they would hear secret recordings in which Rana praised the Mumbai attackers.”The defendant knew what Headley was doing and he helped him,” said US Attorney Sarah Streicker.
None of the other co-conspirators is in US custody and a spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office declined to say whether the US government would be seeking their extradition or knows their whereabouts. — AFP
Online adds: Pakistan has denied David Headley’s testimony before Chicago jury that ISI provided support to LeT for carrying out the Mumbai attacks. “This is a completely incorrect statement,” a spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington said of Headley’s testimony. “ISI and serving officers did not provide support to David Headley. The ISI has nothing to do with the Mumbai attack,” the Pakistani embassy spokesman said. “David was a double agent. He is not a credible witness.”
http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrin...=5%2F25%2F2011
CHICAGO: The accused in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, David Headley, told a Chicago jury Monday that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) supports the extremist group he worked with on the deadly siege.
David Coleman Headley, the Pakistani American, has testified that ISI provided financial, military and moral support to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). “I assumed these groups operated under the same umbrella - they coordinated with each other,” Headley told the jury as he described his militant path and the bloody 60-hour siege of India’s largest city that left 166 people dead.
Headley described his relationship with an ISI handler identified as “Major Iqbal” who gave him $25,000 to help cover the cost of his surveillance work. “I told him what kind of (terrorist) training I did and he mentioned he was part of the Lashkar” Headley said.
Headley testified that after he told Iqbal of a 2003 plot he was working on, Iqbal asked him “to do something that was more important, which was intelligence work for the ISI.”
Headley formally admitted to 12 terror charges in March 2010 after prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty or to allow him to be extradited to India, Pakistan or Denmark to face related charges.
He was testifying at the trial of an old friend from military school in Pakistan - Chicago businessman Tahawwur Hussain Rana - who stands accused of providing Headley with a cover and for acting as a messenger. While US prosecutors named ISI officers as co-conspirators in the Mumbai attacks, it remains unclear whether they were acting independently or with the approval and aid of senior officials.
The Washington-born son of a former Pakistani diplomat and an American woman, Headley admitted to spending months checking out sites for the Mumbai siege and plotting to kill a Danish cartoonist. In a plot that reads like a movie thriller, Headley spent two years scouting Mumbai, even taking boat tours around the city’s harbor to identify landing sites for the attackers and befriending Bollywood stars as part of his cover.
Rana, who holds a Canadian citizenship, insisted after his 2009 arrest that he was a pacifist “duped” into letting his old friend use his immigration services company as a cover.
In the opening statements Monday, his lawyers tried to undermine Headley’s credibility and insisted that Rana thought he was helping the ISI, not extremists. But prosecutors said Rana knew exactly what he was doing, and told jurors they would hear secret recordings in which Rana praised the Mumbai attackers.”The defendant knew what Headley was doing and he helped him,” said US Attorney Sarah Streicker.
None of the other co-conspirators is in US custody and a spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office declined to say whether the US government would be seeking their extradition or knows their whereabouts. — AFP
Online adds: Pakistan has denied David Headley’s testimony before Chicago jury that ISI provided support to LeT for carrying out the Mumbai attacks. “This is a completely incorrect statement,” a spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington said of Headley’s testimony. “ISI and serving officers did not provide support to David Headley. The ISI has nothing to do with the Mumbai attack,” the Pakistani embassy spokesman said. “David was a double agent. He is not a credible witness.”
http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrin...=5%2F25%2F2011
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