He was the terrorists' secret weapon: David Coleman Headley, a middle-aged white American who told a Chicago court he laid the groundwork for one of the most spectacular Islamist terrorist attacks in recent memory.
The admissions were made as part of a plea agreement that brought U.S. prosecutors one of the most significant convictions since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, with Mr. Headley agreeing to testify against his Canadian co-accused in exchange for being spared any U.S. death penalty or a future extradition to India.
Watch a Channel 4 documentary, which features excerpts from intercepted phone calls among the Mumbai attackers.
He still faces up to life in prison. The 49-year-old Pakistani-American admits that he has the blood of more than 160 people on his hands, asserting that, thanks to a cover story provided by his alleged Canadian accomplice, he played a key scouting role that led to the indiscriminate carnage of the 2008 Mumbai massacre.
For three days beginning on Nov. 26 of that year, a team of 10 Pakistani gunmen rained bullets and grenades upon soft targets in India's largest city, killing civilians, storming a synagogue, and setting luxury hotels ablaze. Their higher-ups, who coached them via telephone, told the gunmen the attack would assure them paradise.
None of this bloodletting would have happened save for information and videotapes on the targets that Mr. Headley first supplied to Pakistan-based terror group responsible for the conspiracy: Lashkar-e-Taiba.
In this Jan. 6, 2010 file courtroom drawing Chicago businessman Tahawwur Rana, centre, appears before Judge Matthew Kennelly in Chicago's federal court. — AP Photo/Verna Sadock, File
“Are you pleading guilty because you plotted to bomb and maim people?” U.S. District Court Judge Harry Leinenweber asked in a series of rapid-fire questions put to Mr. Headley during the change-of-plea hearing. The judge went line-by-line through the charges in the 12-count indictment as the accused rescinded his not-guilty pleas.
“David Headley, is that what you like to go by?” the judge asked.
Born to a Pakistani father and an American mother and raised in both countries, the bicultural terrorist was, until a few years ago, known as Daood Gilani. Yesterday he was monotone and monosyllabic as he admitted to plotting terror, replying to each sensational charge with a terse and quiet, “Yes, your honour,” or, “That's correct, sir.”
Wearing an orange jumpsuit and with his arms folded behind his back, Mr. Headley agreed that he “sought to present himself as an American who was neither Muslim nor Pakistani” to further several sprawling conspiracies.
He did not elaborate on his motivation. Mr. Headley has, in fact, been co-operating with U.S. agents since his October arrest at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, when he was caught with 13 surveillance videos he had recently made, as well as a book titled How to Pray Like a Jew.
Following a 1998 conviction for importing heroin he served 15 months in prison, receiving an unusually short sentence in return for working undercover for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Today Mr. Headley is once again co-operating with the authorities in an effort to receive the best possible deal. He admits he has been a terrorist, or at least a sympathizer, since at least 2003, when he first attended a Pakistan training camp. After that, he began crisscrossing the world to further his schemes, all while living in the United States.
From his base in Chicago, he plotted the deaths of dozens of Indian nationals and the half-dozen Americans killed in the Mumbai massacre. He has also implicated a lifelong friend in his crimes.
