A day after 26/11 accused Tahawwur Rana was extradited to India to face trial, the US Division of Justice (DoJ) revealed that following the Mumbai terror assault, which left 166 lifeless and over 238 injured, Rana had allegedly advised his co-conspirator David Coleman Headley that the 9 LeT terrorists killed through the assault “must be given the Nishan-e-Haider” — Pakistan’s highest award for gallantry in battle, reserved for fallen troopers.
The DoJ assertion additionally added that “after the assaults had been full, Rana allegedly advised Headley that the Indians deserved it.”
On Thursday, greater than 16 years after the 26/11 assaults, Rana was extradited to India and formally arrested by the Nationwide Investigation Company (NIA). He was produced earlier than a Delhi court docket, the place the NIA requested 20 days of custody, and the court docket granted 18 days.
A Pakistani-Canadian businessman who as soon as served within the Pakistan Military Medical Corps, Rana is accused of offering essential logistical help to the terrorists. He was arrested in Chicago in October 2009, 11 months after the Mumbai assaults. The 64-year-old faces expenses in India together with conspiracy, homicide, fee of a terrorist act, and forgery, stemming from his alleged involvement within the 2008 Mumbai terrorist assaults carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a delegated international terrorist group.
Elaborating on his position within the 26/11 terror assaults, the US DoJ mentioned in its assertion on Friday that India has alleged Rana facilitated a fraudulent cowl to allow his childhood good friend, David Coleman Headley — a US citizen born Daood Gilani — to journey freely to Mumbai to conduct surveillance of potential targets for LeT.
“Amongst different issues, Rana allegedly agreed to open a Mumbai department of his immigration enterprise and appoint Headley because the supervisor of the workplace, regardless of Headley’s having no immigration expertise. On two separate events, Rana allegedly helped Headley put together and submit visa purposes to Indian authorities that contained data Rana knew to be false. Rana additionally allegedly equipped, by way of his unsuspecting enterprise accomplice, documentation in help of Headley’s try to safe formal approval from Indian authorities to open a department workplace of Rana’s enterprise,” the DoJ assertion reads.
It provides, “Over the course of greater than two years, Headley allegedly repeatedly met with Rana in Chicago and described his surveillance actions on behalf of LeT, LeT’s responses to Headley’s actions, and LeT’s potential plans for attacking Mumbai.”
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The DoJ described Rana’s extradition as a “vital step towards searching for justice for the six Individuals and scores of different victims who had been killed within the heinous assaults,” carried out by ten LeT terrorists in Mumbai between November 26 and 29, 2008.
The terrorists entered Mumbai by sea, break up into teams, and focused a number of places throughout town. At a railway station, they opened hearth and hurled grenades into crowds. At two eating places, they shot at diners indiscriminately. On the Taj Mahal Palace Lodge, they gunned down individuals and set off explosives. One other group attacked a Jewish neighborhood heart, killing these inside. By the point the siege ended, 166 individuals — together with six Individuals — had been killed, all however one of many LeT terrorists had been lifeless, a whole lot had been injured, and town had suffered property injury exceeding $1.5 billion.
“India’s pending proceedings in opposition to Rana aren’t the primary proceedings through which Rana has been accused of conspiring to commit violent acts of terrorism. In 2013, Rana was sentenced to 14 years in jail following his trial conviction within the Northern District of Illinois for conspiring to offer materials help to LeT and to a foiled LeT-sponsored terrorist plot in Copenhagen, Denmark,” the DoJ mentioned.