It was India’s 9/11.
And Chicago businessman Tahawwur Rana was among those ultimately responsible for the flurry of bullets and grenades that showered over Mumbai, prosecutors said.
But on Thursday, a federal jury acquitted Rana of aiding in the 2008 attacks that claimed the lives of over 160 people.
Rana, however, was found guilty of providing material support to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the U.S. designated terrorist organization that orchestrated the bloody South Asian siege.
The Pakistan-trained doctor was also found guilty in a separate plot targeting a Danish newspaper that printed controversial cartoons of Prophet Muhammad.
Lashkar leaders were embroiled in the initial plan to storm the Jyllands-Posten newspaper but abandoned their involvement when they were being investigated for their role in Mumbai, according to testimony in the eight-day trial.
“Jurors don’t have to be entirely consistent, but I don’t see it inconsistent here,” U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said of the split verdict that confused some court observers who wondered why Rana escaped the most serious charge but was found guilty of helping the militant group tied to the carnage in Mumbai.
“We may have an argument that they’re conflicting verdicts, but we need some time to review it and think about it,” Rana’s attorney Patrick Blegen said, vowing to appeal.
The bearded, gray-haired Rana remained stoic as the verdicts were read in U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber’s courtroom. The defendant’s family, who were seen cupping their hands in prayer outside the courtroom minutes before, quietly wiped away tears.
Rana, 50, was “in shock,” said his attorney Charles Swift.
The jurors, mostly minorities, were cloaked in anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case. None chose to comment on the decision following the panel’s two days of deliberation.
Fitzgerald didn’t talk to the eight women and four men on the jury but said it was telling that during Rana’s six-hour videotaped interrogation with the FBI, Rana admitted he knew his military school friend David Coleman Headley had trained with Lashkar.
Headley, who testified for the prosecution in a track suit during the bulk of trial, said he used Rana’s immigration business as a front while he surveilled and scouted sites in Mumbai and the Jyllands-Posten.
During their closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Daniel Collins and Victoria Peters pointed to the absurdity of Headley traveling to Denmark to place an ad for Rana’s business in the newspaper when he could have just picked up the phone.
They also brought attention to an e-mail Rana wrote to the publication using Headley’s name. Of all the newspapers in Europe, it was curious that two Muslim men chose to advertise in the media outlet that had upset followers of Islam all over the world, prosecutors said.
In a secretly recorded 2009 conversation, Rana could be heard laughing when Headley sing-songed “Denmark, Denmark” along with a list of other places he was itching to destroy.
For five days, the Washington D.C.-born Headley gave a stunning account, detailing the inner workings of the international terrorist network he worked with. Headley, a twice convicted heroin dealer and bigamist who wasn’t particularly religious, rubbed shoulders with everybody from Sajid Mir — the mastermind of the Mumbai attacks — to al-Qaeda ally llyas Kashmiri. Kashmiri, who Headley said had plotted to behead Jyllands-Posten staff, was believed to have been killed in a drone attack last week.
Headley also said that prior to the Mumbai attacks, he often conferred with “Major Iqbal,” a man he said belonged to Pakistan’s intelligence agency known as the ISI. The stunning revelation was significant given outstanding questions of the ISI’s possible role in helping protect Osama bin Laden in Pakistan before he was killed by U.S. forces on May 2.
Blegen painted Headley as a lifelong “manipulator and con man” who played Rana for a “fool” just as he did when they were young men growing up in Pakistan. Rana was never in on any of Headley’s plans, Blegen said, noting had Rana known about the Mumbai attacks, he never would have flown to India with his wife Samraz days before.
Headley has since pleaded guilty to all his terrorism-related charges.
While prosecutors said Headley was a “trained terrorist bent on violence,” his knowledge was crucial. Prosecutors have promised Headley they would not seek the death penalty and will ask for leniency when he is sentenced.
“We think it’s important that people around the world know that we have to go after people who plan and carry out attacks, but it’s also important that people never think it’s safe to provide cover for people,” Fitzgerald said.
". . .I am convinced that we would have made a terrible mistake if we didn’t sit down with Mr. Headley and get all the information that we did obtain from him.”
Rana faces up to 30 years in prison.