United States: Tahawwur Hussian Rana, one of the mastermind behind 2008 Mumbai attacks has been sentenced to 14 + 5 Years in Jail by a US Federal Court at Chicago. He would undergo five years of supervised release after spending 14 years in Jails.
US prosecutors had sought 30 years for Rana, who his lawyers said was duped into participation by his school-time friend Headley.
Rana’s lawyers seeking leniency for their client downplayed his role in the Danish scheme, saying he was kept in the dark about much of the plot.
Headley, they said, was a master manipulator who fooled Rana into supporting his terror activities.
They also said the 52-year-old Rana is a “kind”, “compassionate” family man with no prior history of violence and no criminal record and so should get no more than 10 years’ prison time.
They also noted Rana’s recent health problems, including a heart attack.
Rana was convicted in June 2011 by a federal grand jury, which found the businessman guilty of providing material support to LeT and planning an aborted plot to bomb the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
Rana, who was originally arrested in 2009 for his involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, was acquitted of that charge.
However, Indian investigators have accused him of being involved in the Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people and are seeking to question him for the second time.
A Chicago jury convicted Rana in June 2011 on the charges of providing Headley cover as an employee of his immigration business to scout targets in Mumbai and the newspaper office in Copenhagen.
In court filings this week, federal prosecutors described the alleged Danish plot involving beheading newspaper employees and depositing their heads onto Copenhagen streets as “murder on a grand, horrific scale”.
Prosecutors said Rana, who lived in Chicago and owned a Northwest Side immigration and travel service, operated the business as a front for funnelling terrorist money overseas.
Headley, who conducted reconnaissance of the targets of the Mumbai terror attacks for LeT, had entered a plea bargain with the FBI, saving himself from a possible death penalty.
Acting US attorney Gary S Shapiro has requested the Chicago court in a position paper that Rana be handed down a total of 30 years in prison.
Referring to the heart attack Rana suffered in June 2012 and the hospitalisation thereafter, his attorney Patrick W Blegan had told teh court earlier, “It is likely that his health will continue to deteriorate. He will likely at some point require dialysis due to his kidney disease, and is, of course, at risk for a second heart attack or vasovagal event”.
Pakistan-born, Rana is a naturalized Canadian citizen who later on moved to Chicago for business purposes and has been living here for more than a decade now.
Rana is the first of the eight co-defendants who were indicted by the federal prosecutors in October, to be sentenced by the Chicago Court.
Sentencing of Headley has been scheduled for January 24. In March 2010, he pleaded guilty to all 12 counts against him, including aiding and abetting the murders of the six American victims.
Facing a maximum sentence of life in prison, Headley cooperated with the government since he was arrested in October 2009, and testified as a government witness at Rana’s trial.
Among other six indicted by the FBI, include Ilyas Kashmiri, influential terrorist organisation leader in Pakistan who is in regular contact with of al-Qaida leaders; and Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed (Abdur Rehman), a retired major in the Pakistani military, both of whom were charged in two conspiracy counts relating to the Denmark terrorism plot.