US defense rests case in Mumbai plot trial

Defense rested its case without the defendant taking to the stand.

CHICAGO: The defense in the trial of an alleged co-conspirator of the 2008 Mumbai attacks rested its case Monday without the defendant taking to the stand.

Chicago businessman Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 50, is charged with three counts of providing material support to terrorists by acting as a messenger and providing a cover for a key figure in the bloody 60-hour siege of India's largest city in which 166 people died.

David Coleman Headley, Rana's old friend from military school in Pakistan, has been cooperating with prosecutors since his 2009 arrest and was the star witness at Rana's trial.

In response to specific questions from Judge Harry Leinenweber, Rana said he was waiving his right to testify in his trial.

The 50-year-old former Pakistani military physician has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

As the arguments in the trial concluded, the jurors were for the first time shown parts of Rana's video interrogation by US federal agents.

The prosecution showed about 10 minutes from the six-hour interrogation of Rana in a poorly lit Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) holding cell in Chicago on October 18, 2009, the day he was arrested.

It was the first glimpse of Rana's interaction with federal agents questioning him about Headley, his links with Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) as well the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Rana, who is of Pakistani origin and also a citizen of Canada, was shown signing a document waiving his Miranda rights and his right to answer questions only in the presence of an attorney.

Speaking in low tones and looking somewhat unsure initially, Rana answered questions about his conversations with Headley.

"We are talking for hours. Friends are talking. There is loose talk, there is good talk, there is bad talk," Rana says in the video clip.

While discussing Headley's links with the ISI and Lashkar, Rana says, "Probably Lashkar did not know he was working for the ISI."

Headley formally admitted to 12 terrorism charges in March 2010 after prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty or to allow him to be extradited to either India, Pakistan or Denmark to face related charges.

The Washington-born son of a former Pakistani diplomat and American woman, Headley admitted to spending months scoping out sites for the Mumbai siege and plotting to kill a Danish cartoonist.

The ISI has long been suspected of involvement and three ISI agents were named as co-conspirators by US prosecutors following Headley's 2009 arrest at a Chicago airport.