CHICAGO (CN) - In September 2009, a pair of childhood friends rambled southwest out of Chicago toward a farm in rural Kinsman, reminiscing about plotting the 2008 Mumbai attacks that left 164 dead. So says one of the friends, admitted terrorist David Headley.
As sometimes happens with friends, there has been a falling out. Headley is the key government witness now in a trial that could put his "closest friend in the world," Chicago-based businessman Tahawwur Rana, behind bars for the rest of his life.
This testimony ensures that Headley will meet the same fate, instead of facing the death penalty for his participation in the terrorist attacks orchestrated by the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Headley spoke at length about the Mumbai plot in the second day of direct examination on Tuesday, claiming to have kept Rana informed at every turn and to have received material aid from the Pakistan-born Canadian citizen.
In day three on the stand, Headley described how Lashkar had set its sights on Denmark to exact retribution for the Jyllands-Posten newspaper's publication of controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in 2005.
Prosecutors played several of Headley's surveillance videos, including one of a Royal Guard parade that he and fellow Mumbai plotter Sajid Mir joked about assailing with grenades. Rana is accused of having supported this plot as well by arranging Headley's flights and attempting to find the address of cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Collins teased out several incriminating statements purportedly made by Rana. Headley recalled Rana saying that Mir should be commended for his "tactical brilliance" in planning the Mumbai attacks.
Facing his old friend in the courtroom, Headley, a Pakistani-American born in Washington D.C., then reenacted his side of a conversation with Rana during a 2009 trip to the latter's farm in Kinsman, a tiny town located a couple hours outside of Chicago.
Headley remembered telling Rana that he gave his Copenhagen reconnaissance report to Pasha, a Lashkar operative known only by his alias, who would then pass the information on to Ilyas Kashmiri, a known al-Qaida operative in line to succeed Osama bin Laden.
According to Headley's transcript, he spoke with Rana on these matters like a person in the know, using code words and aliases.
He explained that he shared such information because "it was just ... general gossip that was going on in my life."
Part of that gossip concerned "four targets that I liked," Headley said, elaborating that they were the Jyllands-Posten offices in Copenhagen, Bollywood in Mumbai, the famous Somnath Temple in Gujarat, India, and India's right-wing political party Shiv Sena.
While Headley considered targeting Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray, ultimately he and his Lashkar contacts abandoned the plot as implausible.
Headley added that a fifth target, India's National Defense College, caught his eye because it would mean more Indian officers would die "than had been killed in all the previous [Indo-Pakistani] wars."
Rana was not merely a sounding board through all this, Headley testified. Allegedly, Rana warned his friend that, at age 48, Headley was getting a little old for such intrigues and "could start working at [Rana's] farm." Headley said he wanted to get his targets first.
