Sajid Mir, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba’s handler in Pakistan, was praised by Mumbai attack co-accused Tahawwur Rana for his Chhabad
House attack strategy and even likened him to Khalid bin Walid, a legendary Arab general, David Headley testified here on Wednesday.
Headley, a 26/11 co-accused who has pleaded guilty, was giving his testimony on the third day of the trial of his childhood friend Rana, a Pakistani-Canadian, who faces 12 charges over the November 2008 terrorist strike on Mumbai in which 166 persons were killed.
The federal district judge conducting the trial has, meanwhile, ordered that some of the dozen-plus sealed documents presented in the court as key evidence should be made public. Some of them are believed to contain key evidence of the links between Pakistan’s ISI and the LeT. The order by US district judge Harry Leinenweber came on a plea by the Chicago Tribune, which sought public access to over a dozen sealed documents in the Rana case. Details of which documents would be released was not immediately available. Some of them have not even been revealed yet to Rana’s lawyers.
At the trial, meanwhile, referring to the operation at Mumbai’s Chhabad House, Headley said Sajid Mir of the LeT told the “two boys” (attackers) to use mattresses and ambush the special forces descending down the staircases. Six people were killed in the attack on Chhabad House, a Jewish community centre.
Headley, a Pakistani-American, claimed Rana said this strategy was tactically brilliant and that he be called “Khalid bin Walid”, a famous Arab military strategist from the times of Prophet Mohammed in the seventh century. Headley also said he told Sajid Mir he had received a compliment
from Rana for his “tactical brilliance”.
Headley said Sajid Mir expressed frustration that he had not followed all his instructions — one was “I was not supposed to go back to India after the Mumbai attack and travel to Denmark”.
Headley told the court Sajid Mir was in Karachi during the Mumbai attack. He said a couple of people were with him. Sajid was in contact with the attackers via telephone and that he was watching the television coverage of the siege then under way in Mumbai.
In his testimony to the government prosecutor, Headley had said he had sent some emails to Rajaram Rege of the Shiv Sena. On Tuesday he spoke of a plot involving the Lashkar and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence to assassinate Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray.
He also indicated that Rana had sent a message for him (Headley) from Major Iqbal, Headley’s ISI handler. This was before he went on the last trip to Mumbai for surveillance ahead of the attacks.
In July 2009, Headley travelled to England, Sweden and Denmark to meet two men loyal to Ilyas Kashmiri to discuss the “Mickey Mouse Project” related to the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten, which had published the controversial cartoons on the Prophet Mohammed. This was about a plot to attack the newspaper. The jury was shown 13 short videos taken by Headley of the Danish capital Copenhagen.
“I conveyed to them what Kashmiri wanted,” Headley said. “I asked for manpower and funds for the project. It was lukewarm... the response. They were not into it. Instead of £10,000, they gave me £2,000 and gave no weapons.”
Headley then traveled to Copenhagen and did surveillance of the building housing Jyllands Posten. Some videos showing this surveillance were also shown in court, including that of a parade in Copenhagen. Headley also had a discussion with Sajid Mir about the possibility of throwing a grenade into the parade.
He also took a video of the Copenhagen train station as a possible escape location for the attackers. “I made a video in January as well,” Headley said. He also visited the barracks from where the parade would start, and spoke to a captain asking if the weapons the soldiers carried were loaded. The captain replied that they were — as “you never know” despite there “being no threat”.
Added Headley: “On August 1, I messaged Rana to get a flight from Philadelphia to Chicago no later than August 10. The arrangements for travel were made by Rana.”