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Chicago man charged in 2008 Mumbai terror attacks

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Monday that a Chicago man has been charged in connection with the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, India. US citizen David Coleman Headley, arrested in October for allegedly conspiring to bomb a Danish newspaper, was charged Monday with six counts of conspiracy to bomb public places in India, to murder and maim persons in India and Denmark, to provide material support to foreign terrorist plots, and to provide material support to terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and six counts of aiding and abetting the murder of US citizens in India. Headley allegedly traveled several times to Mumbai to take pictures and videos of various targets, several of which were attacked. No date has been set for Headley's arraignment before the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Also Monday, the DOJ unsealed a complaint against retired Pakistani major Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed for conspiracy in planning to attack the Danish newspaper and its employees. The lone surviving suspected gunman from the Mumbai attacks, Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab, is currently on trial in India. Last month, the judge hearing the trial removed Qasab's defense lawyer after finding that the lawyer lied when he denied being informed of the special public prosecutor's intent to examine 340 more witnesses of the attack. Qasab's previous lawyer was also removed in April for ethical violations after agreeing to represent both the accused and a victim of the attack. The Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan has indicted seven men accused of planning the attacks, charging them under Pakistan's Anti-Terrorism Act. The men, who allegedly belong to LeT, have pleaded not guilty. Pakistan has postponed the trial of five others allegedly connected with the 2008 attack, which claimed at least 170 lives at ten locations across the city.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on December 07, 2009 (boomark / email).