Chicago Visa Agent Charged in '08 Mumbai Terror Attacks
A 49-year-old Chicago man was charged with conspiring with members of Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar e-Tayyiba to carry out the 2008 Mumbai, India terrorist attacks, killing six American citizens, and planning a terror attack against Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten for posting editorial cartoons depicting the Muslim Prophet Mohammed.
The 17-page criminal information alleges that David Coleman Headley, who operated 'First World Immigration Services' as a visa agent, made a number of trips from Chicago to India between 2006 and 2008 "to perform surveillance and other activity in Mumbai, India" for the Lashkar terror group.
Six Americans were killed in the '08 Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) terror attacks: Ben Zion Chroman, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg (who ran the Orthodox Jewish Chabad House in Mumbai), Sandeep Jeswani, Alan Scherr, his daughter Naomi Scherr, and Rabbi Aryeh Leibish Teitelbaum.
The fact that Headley was charged in a criminal information, not an indictment, is another sign of his apparent cooperation with federal prosecutors.
You can read David Headley's criminal information here:
Headley's Chicago attorney is John Theis.
Also charged today was Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, a Pakistani general who alleged took Headley to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan during a January 2009 trip by Headly to meet with Lashkar members and Kashmiri separatists to discuss plans for carrying out a terrorist attack on Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper.
Read the charges against Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed a/k/a Abdur Rahman here:
Related Resources:
- U.S. Charges Chicago Man in '08 Mumbai Attack, Reuters (Dec. 7, 2009)
- Chicagoan Charged with Aiding Deadly Mumbai Terror Attack, Chicago Tribune (Dec. 7, 2009)
- Foreign Terrorist Organizations, U.S. Congressional Research Service (Feb 6, 2004)