Headley used personal links to favour Rana: FBI

Chicago: David Coleman Headley, the Pakistani-American convicted terrorist and co-accused in the Mumbai terror attack, had approached Pakistan’s spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence to help Tahawwur Rana get back to Pakistan, according to a video recording produced by the Federal Bureau of Investigation before a court in Chicago on Monday. [caption id=“attachment_21524” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Rana’s lawyer Charles Swift said, the government could not prove beyond reasonable doubt that Rana was guilty. AFP”]  [/caption] Headley used his personal links to favour Rana, FBI agent Jeffrey Parsons said while deposing before the United States District Court during the 26/11 trial which resumed after a five-day break. In the video shown in court, Pakistan-born businessman Tahawwur Rana, who is accused of helping David Headley scout for targets for the November 2008 Mumbai terror attack, said he thought Lashkar-e-Taiba didnot know Headley is with the ISI. The video also nails ISI’s links to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and 26/11 attacks. It even shows Rana confessing to have met Al Qaeda commander Ilyas Kashmiri, who is believed to have been killed in a US drone attack in south Waziristan last week. Rana, 50, had served in the Pakistani Army as a doctor. He served in the Gulf War in Saudi Arabia and got injured there and recuperated in Germany. After that Rana was posted in the glacier region in Pakistan where he declined to go, following which he was declared a deserter and could not travel to Pakistan again After two weeks of testimony, the prosecution and defence have put their case to rest. Closing arguments will take place today and the jury will have to decide after everything they have seen and heard over the past two weeks whether Tahawwur Rana knew about Headley’s terrorist agenda or whether he genuinely believed that the man who he thought was his childhood friend was working to expand his immigration business in India. At the hearing of the terror trial, the defence said employees at Rana’s Immigration offices in New York or Toronto did not remember working with Headley. The employees—Rehana and Kashif Khan — among others, take calls at the offices. The defense called in a computer forensic expert and an immigration attorney but Rana waived his right to testify. Closing arguments by the prosecution and defense are scheduled for Tuesday. Computer forensic expert Yaniv Schiff Moshe said he researched Rana’s computers from July 1, 2009 to October 15, 2009 and found that no search was conducted on them except on one computer for Jyllands Posten cultural editor Fleming Rose or Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist who drew the controversial cartoons of Prophet Muhammad. This one computer was used by Headley himself to search the Danish newspaper office and its targets. The government and prosecution argued on computer technicalities like “Unallocated Space” in which technicians can check which websites were visited on a computer. Schiff also said he saw in a link of a Yahoo group - an Abdalian forum posting and a Mumbai terror attacks posting on Rana’s computer. But these links never opened. After the presentation of witnesses, Judge Harry D Leinenweber asked Rana if he had consulted his lawyers and wanted to testify but a frail-looking Rana, dressed in a brown suit, said that he did not wish to do so. Rana’s lawyer Charles Swift said, the government could not prove beyond reasonable doubt that Rana was guilty. “Government could not prove its case so Rana is not testifying,” Swift said. Rana faces a possible life sentence if convicted in the ongoing 26/11 trial. FBI releases first ever video of the Rana Trial PTI