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  David Headley testifies on LeT’s 26/11 plot, details ISI role

David Headley testifies on LeT’s 26/11 plot, details ISI role

Published : Feb 9, 2016, 5:54 am IST
Updated : Feb 9, 2016, 5:54 am IST

For first time, terrorist turned approver gives video evidence to Indian court

Public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam interacts with the media. (Photo: PTI)
 Public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam interacts with the media. (Photo: PTI)

For first time, terrorist turned approver gives video evidence to Indian court

Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Tayyaba terrorist Dawood Salim Gilani alias David Coleman Headley on Monday testified before a Mumbai special court through video conferencing as an approver, and for the first time revealed the direct involvement of Pakistan’s ISI in the 26/11 terror attacks.

He illustrated how LeT had planned the 26/11 attacks and executed it after two failed attempts, in September and October 2008, giving details of the ISI’s role and naming three of its officers. He also spoke about the role of LeT founder Hafiz Saeed, another LeT commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi as well as his handler Sajid Mir. He acknowledged he joined LeT due to Saeed’s influence.

Headley told the court his real name was Dawood Salim Gilani and he changed his name to David Coleman Headley solely to gain entry into India as an American citizen so that he could gather information for LeT.

“I was motivated to join LeT after hearing Hafiz Saeed Saab’s speech,” said Headley, adding Saeed was LeT’s head. He even identified a photograph of Saeed.

He told the court he met an ISI officer, Maj. Sajid Mir for the first time when he was arrested at the Afghan border. Headley said he had gone to the Landi Kotal area along with retired Pakistani major Abdul Rehman Pasha to meet a drug dealer, Zaid Shah, in an attempt to explore if the drug dealer could help smuggle weapons to India. “However, foreigners are not allowed in Fata (Federally Administered Tribal Area) in Pakistan, and they thought I was a foreigner and arrested me. At that time, Maj. Sajid Mir came to interrogate him because as an ISI officer it was his duty to interrogate people arrested in that area,” he said.

Headley added he was then carrying literature on India, that made the authorities arrest him. But he also had with him a Pakistani identity card, and when it was proved he was a Pakistani they let him go. Headley then testified that Maj. Mir thought he (Headley) could be useful for them, so he introduced him to ISI’s Maj. Iqbal, and it was at their instance that he changed his name and got issued a new passport and a business visa for India. “Maj. Iqbal was happy to see it (business visa for India) and approved it,” added Headley.

With this visa, he came to Mumbai seven times before the 26/11 attacks. He also visited Delhi once. After getting the visa Maj. Mir asked him to set up an office in Mumbai so he could visit the city easily, and his first assignment in Mumbai was to prepare a general video of the city.

“I was intending to go to Kashmir to fight against Indian troops but I didn’t go as I was told I was too old to go to Kashmir,” Headley said in his statement as an approver in the court of special judge G.A. Sanap on Monday. He told the court: “Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi (of LeT) told me I am not fit to go to Kashmir, and that they would use me for some other purpose.” Headley also testified on how the ISI and LeT trained him to gather intelligence and do a recee of Mumbai.

He revealed how the 10 terrorists, who struck at different places in Mumbai on November 26, 2008, killing 166 people, had planned to carry out the attack twice earlier — in September and October — but the attempts failed. Once their boat hit a rock in the seas, after which they lost their arms and ammunition and had to return to Pakistan.

Answering questions by special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, Headley said his mother was a US citizen and his father Salim was a Pakistani. Headley was born in the United States on June 30, 1960, and soon after his birth his family shifted to Pakistan where he attended Karachi Republic School (an Army school) and did two years of college at Hassan Abdal Cadre College in Punjab before shifting back to US at the age of 18.

He spoke of how he got motivated after listening to Hafiz Saeed’s speech. “I joined LeT in 2002 in Muzaffarabad in Azad Kashmir (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir),” he said.

Headley revealed details similar to what Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone arrested 26/11 terrorist who was later convicted and hanged, had told his interrogators. Like Kasab, Headley had undergone training of Daura-e-Aama, a preliminary military training course, and Daura-e-Khasa, a more advanced course, where he was given training in handling sophisticated arms and explosives. But unlike other attackers, as Headley was to be used for gathering intelligence, he was made to undergo other courses too, like the Daura-e-Sufa training for leadership and Daura-e-Ribat, where he was taught how to gather intelligence, do reconnaissance and build a safe house.

When advocate Ujjwal Nikam sought details on this “safe house” training, Headley explained it was to ensure that a person could live in an “enemy area” on friendly terms with local residents. While the first two courses were held in Muzaffarabad, the others were done at Abbotabad, near the Pakistani military academy (where Osama bin Laden was killed in an American raid in May 2011).

Headley applied to change his name in October 2005 and on February 15, 2006 his application was allowed. Later he discussed his plan to visit India with Maj. Iqbal and Sajid Mir. Under their plan, Headley sought a business visa through schoolmate Tahwur Husssain Rana, a doctor in the Pakistan Army. On Headley’s urging Rana asked his friend Raymond Sanders to write a letter to the Indian consulate in Chicago to get a visa for Headley. Sanders was an immigration attorney working in Chicago.