Asia-Pacific

Chicago man guilty of aiding Mumbai attack group

(Agencies)
Updated: 2011-06-10 10:38

CHICAGO - A US jury on Thursday found a Pakistani-born Chicago businessman guilty of supporting an Islamic militant group blamed for the 2008 attack in Mumbai but not guilty of the more serious charge of helping plot the attack that killed 166.

The jury also found Tahawwur Rana, 50, a former Pakistan Army doctor with Canadian citizenship, guilty of conspiring to attack a Danish newspaper, a plot that was never carried out.

In the trial, held in US federal court in Chicago, a key witness implicated Pakistan's intelligence agency, ISI, in the Mumbai attack.

The witness was Rana's childhood friend, David Headley, who testified that Rana had provided help as Headley scouted targets in India.

Rana was charged with three counts of providing material support for terrorism.

In five days of testimony, Headley, 50, an American with a Pakistani father, related how he plotted the Mumbai attack with his handlers from the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, an agent from Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and a retired Pakistani Army officer.

Lashkar-e-Taiba is designated by the US State Department as a terrorist organization.

Rana and Headley were also charged in a separate plot for militants with ties to al Qaeda to storm Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which published cartoons lampooning the Muslim Prophet Mohammed, and behead its staff.

Rana was charged with working with Headley and his Pakistani co-conspirators, six of whom were also indicted by US authorities but were not in custody.

The defense argued Headley was lying. He had pleaded guilty and promised to testify in exchange for avoiding the death penalty and extradition to India, Pakistan or Denmark.

The case revealed contacts between ISI and Islamic militants who are fighting India over the disputed territory of Kashmir. The trial took place weeks after US special forces killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, which has further strained US-Pakistan ties.

The six Pakistanis charged included al Qaeda-linked militant leader Ilyas Kashmiri, Lashkar operatives, Headley's ISI contact "Major Iqbal," and a retired Pakistani army major known as "Pasha." Pakistani authorities said on Sunday that Kashmiri was killed in a US drone attack, though American officials were skeptical that he was dead.

Headley, a former US drug informant, said other ISI officers were helpful to him and trained him in spycraft, but that he suspected ISI "higher-ups" did not know of the Mumbai plot.