The leadership of Pakistan’s -Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency was not involved in planning the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks, self-confessed plotter David Coleman Headley told a Chicago court on Tuesday.
Headley, who pleaded guilty to 12 terror charges arising out of the attacks on India’s financial capital and other unrealized plots, testified that only a handful of ISI agents were involved in the Mumbai plot.
He testified that his main contact at the ISI was a handler identified only as “Major Iqbal,” but that he suspected the major’s supervisor, an unnamed colonel, was also involved in the planning.
When asked if he believed that neither the head of the ISI nor its senior leadership were involved, Headley testified: “Yes.”
“The colonel might have known and someone in the group might have known,” Headley said.
The Mumbai attacks, in which 166 people were killed, stalled a fragile four-year peace process between India and Pakistan, two South Asian neighbors and nuclear-armed rivals, which was only resumed in February.
Pakistan’s powerful ISI agency 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.
The trial comes amid a diplomatic crisis as Pakistan struggles to deflect suspicion of official complicity with terrorism after US commandos killed Osama bin Laden in an urban compound only 55km from Islamabad on May 2 after a decade-long manhunt.
Headley had previously testified that he believed the ISI worked closely with the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and detailed his relationship with an ISI handler identified as “Major Iqbal.”
However, Headley’s testimony on Tuesday supports Pakistan’s assertion that the ISI’s involvement — if any — was limited to a handful of rogue agents.
Headley is testifying against his childhood friend and alleged co-conspirator, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, in exchange for avoiding the death penalty and extradition to India, Pakistan or Denmark.
The Washington-born son of a former Pakistani diplomat and a US woman, Headley spent two years scouting Mumbai, even taking boat tours around the city’s harbor to identify landing sites for the attackers and befriending Bollywood stars as part of his cover.
Rana is accused of providing Headley with a cover and acting as a messenger, with prosecutors alleging he played a behind-the-scenes logistical role in both the Mumbai attacks and another abortive plan to strike Copenhagen.
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