Indonesia fears backlash from Bali bomb trial (AFP)

SYDNEY (AFP) – Indonesia fears the trial of an alleged mastermind of the Bali bombings would increase terrorist risks and suggested it was not keen on prosecuting Umar Patek, a report said Wednesday.

Patek, one of the most wanted Islamic extremists in Southeast Asia, was arrested in March in Abbottabad in Pakistan -- the same town where Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed just weeks later.

In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, the head of Indonesia's anti-terrorism agency Ansyaad Mbai said Patek would become a new figurehead for violent jihadis if returned to the country of his birth.

"Umar Patek was chased by many countries. There was a (million dollar) prize on his head but now that he's arrested it's as if Indonesia must face the problem alone," Ansyaad told the newspaper.

"This man is very dangerous. His presence here would increase the terror threat, not only to Indonesia but to several countries with a presence here.

"He'll be like fresh air for remnants of the terrorism network. (The terrorists) are dangerous, they still exist and they've been waiting for a figurehead such as Umar Patek."

Born in 1970, Patek was the alleged field coordinator for the massive explosions that flattened night clubs on the holiday island of Bali in 2002, killing more than 200 people, almost 90 of them Australians.

It placed mainly Muslim Indonesia on the front lines of the global battle against Islamic militancy.

A suspected member of the Al-Qaeda-linked Southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), he was also blamed for a series of deadly bombings targeting Christians and Westerners in Indonesia dating back to 1999.

Ansyaad told the Herald Indonesia would face difficulties bringing him to justice, saying that the bombings occurred before Indonesia enacted its counter-terrorism laws.

Australia has previously said it would be "in the closest liaison" with Pakistan and Indonesia over "what happens next in this particular case".

But Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, who is due to visit Jakarta this week, suggested that Patek was Indonesia's responsibility.

"Given Patek is an Indonesian citizen and that some of the most serious crimes he is believed to have committed took place in Indonesia, the Australian government considers any action should in the first instance be taken by Indonesian authorities," his spokeswoman said.

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Suspects on trial over Morocco cafe bombing (AP)

RABAT, Morocco – Seven people went on trial in Morocco Thursday for the bombing of a Marrakech tourist cafe that killed 17, one of the worst terrorist acts to hit the North African kingdom.

The proceedings were postponed until Aug. 18 to allow lawyers for both the victims and the defense more time to prepare. Both sides pleaded their cases on Thursday's opening day.

The April 28 explosion tore through the Argana cafe in Marrakech's old town, a popular tourist destination. Several of those killed were foreigners.

Defense lawyers asked that the suspects be released pending the next court session, but the court refused.

The defense lawyers also complained about the conditions of detention, comparing them to the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo. The prosecutor responded angrily that the claim was exaggerated.

The chief suspect, Adel Othmani, appeared relaxed in the courtroom, and turned several times to wave and smile at family members. He was arrested three days after the explosion, and Moroccan police say he has loyalties to al-Qaida and tried to travel to Iraq and Chechnya.

Families of the suspects staged a protests in front of the court, complaining that they had not been able to visit their loved ones behind bars.

Among the charges facing the suspects are premeditated murder, explosives possession, and membership in a banned religious group, according to the state news agency MAP.

The dead included Moroccan, French, British, Swiss and Portuguese victims.

The attack shook relatively peaceful Morocco, a staunch U.S. ally that drew nearly 10 million tourists last year to its sandy beaches, desert and mountain landscapes, and historic sites.

The blast came several weeks after King Mohamed VI promised constitutional reforms to shepherd in more democracy amid a push across the Arab world. Moroccans vote in a referendum on the reforms Friday.

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Saudi trial opens for 85 suspected al-Qaida agents (AP)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Saudi Arabia's state news agency says 85 suspected members of al-Qaida accused of taking part in a deadly 2003 terrorist attack have gone on trial in a Riyadh court.

The SPA news agency says some of the defendants were charged with carrying out car bombings on three Riyadh housing compounds for foreigners that killed more than 30 people. Others were charged with attacking security forces, weapons possession, bomb making and armed robbery.

SPA did not say when the men were arrested or why they facing trial now, eight years after the attacks.

However, it claimed their arrest had foiled several plots to bomb two air bases and residential compounds in the eastern region.

It said security forces had confiscated videos documenting some of the defendants' operations.

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Another top terror suspect on trial in Indonesia (AP)

JAKARTA, Indonesia – One of Indonesia's top terrorism suspects went on trial Monday on charges of helping set up a terrorist training camp for a group that plotted attacks on foreigners and assassinations of the country's moderate Muslim leaders.

The trial of Abu Tholut began days after a hard-line cleric was sentenced to 15 years in prison for supporting the same jihadist camp.

Tholut, 50, is accused of procuring M16 assault rifles and other weapons for the camp, which was raided early last year in westernmost Aceh province, prosecutor Bambang Suharyadi told the West Jakarta District Court. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Arrested in December, Tholut is one of more than 120 alleged members of the "Tanzim Al Qaeda in Aceh" group to have been captured or killed since the camp was uncovered. More than 50 of those men have been sentenced to prison.

Radical Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, co-founder of the al-Qaida-linked Islamist movement Jemaah Islamiyah, was last week sentenced to 15 years for supporting the camp.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, was thrust onto the front lines of the battle against terrorism in 2002, when Jemaah Islamiyah militants bombed two crowded nightclubs on the resort island of Bali, killing 202 people, many of them foreign tourists. There have been several attacks since then, but all have been far less deadly.

Police have said the Aceh group was plotting Mumbai-style gun attacks on foreigners at luxury hotels in the capital of Jakarta and assassinations, including of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to punish the government for supporting the U.S.-led anti-terrorism fight.

Tholut, also known as Mustofa, became one of Indonesia's most wanted fugitives after master bomb-makers Noordin M. Top and Dulmatin were gunned down early last year in police raids.

He was convicted for involvement in a 2001 bomb blast at a shopping plaza in central Jakarta that wounded six, and he served five years of an eight-year sentence after getting remission for good behavior. Like dozens of other convicted Indonesian extremists, he returned to his terror network after he was released.

Nasir Abas — a former militant who has helped police track down and arrest several members of his network — said Tholut had been a combatant in Afghanistan and an "excellent instructor" who helped train Islamist militants in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao.

Judges adjourned the trial until next week, when Tholut's lawyers are due to respond to the charges.

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Attorney General Holder defends terrorism trial plans (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday defended the Obama administration's use of criminal courts to try terrorism suspects after a renewed call to send them to military trials at the naval base in Cuba.

Republicans and even some of President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats have sought to keep open the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and forced the administration to use military courts for the most significant terrorism suspects, those accused of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Holder offered a rebuttal backing traditional criminal trials for terrorism suspects, describing the backlash as "overheated rhetoric that is detached from history and from the facts."

Those who back military trials for terrorism suspects have argued that the accused should not receive full U.S. legal rights and the cities where such trials are held could become targets for attacks, pointing to Guantanamo as the best venue.

"Not one of these individuals has escaped custody. Not one of the judicial districts involved has suffered retaliatory attacks. And not one of these terrorists arrested on American soil has been tried by a military commission," Holder told the American Constitution Society, a liberal-leaning group.

A year ago before a similar audience Holder was defending both military and civilian courts for such cases.

The problem of how to arrest and prosecute terrorism suspects has dogged Obama for the last two years. Congress has blocked attempts to close the Guantanamo prison by choking off funds for transfers to U.S. soil for any reason, including prosecution.

Holder's comments follow a call by the top Senate Republican, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, for the administration to transfer two Iraqi men arrested last month in Kentucky to military custody at Guantanamo for prosecution.

"They should be hunted and captured, detained and interrogated, and tried away from civilian populations according to the laws of war," McConnell said on Tuesday.

The two were accused in federal court of trying to help al Qaeda militants in their home country. One of them was also charged with taking part in roadside bomb attacks on U.S. troops.

Waad Ramadan Alwan and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi were charged in a 23-count indictment for allegedly trying to provide support and weapons to an al Qaeda affiliate in Iraq, in a sting operation subsequently run by U.S. authorities.

They entered the United States in 2009 after receiving refugee status and have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Holder tried to send the five men accused of the September 11 attacks, including self-proclaimed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, to federal court in New York, but after pressure he had to reverse his decision, so they will be tried before a military court at Guantanamo.

Holder acknowledged those setbacks, but told the group: "There is, quite simply, no more powerful tool than our civilian court system."

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

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Jakarta security boosted for Bashir trial (AFP)

JAKARTA (AFP) – Indonesia tightened security at shopping centres in Jakarta on Wednesday following bomb threats a day before the trial of radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir on terrorism charges, police said.

"I ordered security at malls to be heightened, we'll send more personnel to ensure public security," Jakarta police chief Sutarman told reporters.

More than 3,000 police and soldiers backed by armoured vehicles and several snipers will guard the trial at South Jakarta district court, police said.

Police were taking special precautions after phone text messages threatening terror attacks circulated in the mainly Muslim country, Sutarman said.

"There are many such text phone messages circulating with some containing serious (threats). We won't play down such threats," he added.

Bashir, 72, has been accused of providing funding of more than $62,000 to a terrorist group dubbed Al-Qaeda in Aceh that was plotting attacks in Indonesia, and prosecutors have sought a maximum life sentence.

He is seen as a spiritual leader of Southeast Asian militants, but he denies any role in terrorist activity.

Court spokesman Ida Bagus Dwiyantara said judges who handled Bashir's case had also received the text messages which said "there will be bomb blasts in a number of places".

"Police will provide special security to the judges," Dwiyantara said.

Security forces will be stationed around the court and only people with special identification passes such as journalists will be allowed on the premises.

Indonesia has been rocked by a series of attacks staged by regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah in recent years, including the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people.

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Mumbai attacks plotter fingers Pakistan at Chicago trial (AFP)

CHICAGO (AFP) – The Pakistani-American who spent months casing out Mumbai ahead of the 2008 attacks told a Chicago jury Monday that Pakistan's spy service supports terrorist group he worked with on the deadly siege.

David Coleman Headley testified that Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) provided financial, military and moral support to banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

"I assumed these groups operated under the same umbrella -- they coordinated with each other," Headley told the jury as he described his path to terrorism and the bloody 60-hour siege of India's largest city that left 166 people dead.

Headley described his relationship with an ISI handler identified as "Major Iqbal" who gave him $25,000 to help cover the cost of his surveillance work.

"I told him what kind of (terrorist) training I did and he mentioned he was part of Lashkar" Headley said.

Headley testified that after he told Iqbal of a plot he was working on in 2003, Iqbal asked him "to do something that was more important, which was intelligence work for the ISI."

Headley formally admitted to 12 terrorism charges in March 2010 after prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty or to allow him to be extradited to either India, Pakistan or Denmark to face related charges.

He was testifying at the trial of an old friend from military school in Pakistan -- Chicago businessman Tahawwur Hussain Rana -- who stands accused of providing Headley with a cover and acting as a messenger.

The proceedings are likely to add fuel to a diplomatic crisis over suspicions of official Pakistani complicity with terrorism after US commandos killed ex-Al-QOsama bin Laden on May 2 in a garrison city just 55 kilometers (35 miles) from Islamabad.

However, while US prosecutors named ISI officers as co-conspirators in the Mumbai attacks, it is not yet clear whether they were acting independently or with the approval and aid of senior officials.

The Washington-born son of a former Pakistani diplomat and an American woman, Headley admitted to spending months scoping out sites for the Mumbai siege and plotting to kill a Danish cartoonist.

In a plot that reads like a movie thriller, 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.

The attacks stalled a fragile four-year peace process between the two South Asian neighbors and nuclear-armed rivals which was only resumed in February.

Rana -- who holds Canadian citizenship -- insisted after his 2009 arrest that he was a pacifist "duped" into letting his old friend use his immigration services company as a cover.

In opening statements Monday, his lawyers tried to undermine Headley's credibility and insisted that Rana thought he was helping the ISI, not terrorists.

"Headley is a master manipulator who made a fool of Dr. Rana," defense attorney Charlie Swift told jurors.

"The question is that at the end of this case will David Headley make a fool out of all us. I'm confident he won't."

But prosecutors said Rana knew exactly what he was doing, and told jurors they would hear secret recordings in which Rana praised the Mumbai attackers.

"The defendant knew what Headley was doing and he helped him," said US Attorney Sarah Streicker.

"In a complicated and sophisticated attack, not everyone carries a weapon. But support people are just as important."

None of the other co-conspirators are in US custody and a spokesman for the US Attorney's Office declined to say whether the US government would be seeking their extradition or even knows their whereabouts.

Headley -- who changed his name from Daood Gilani so he could hide his Pakistani heritage -- joined LeT in 2002, attending training camps five times over the next three years.

He began working with an Al-Qaeda-linked group in Pakistan called Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami on the Danish plot after LeT became preoccupied with the final planning for the Mumbai attack.

Headley was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare airport on his way to deliver 13 surveillance videos he obtained after pretending to be interested in buying ads in Jyllands-Posten, Denmark's highest circulation daily.

The newspaper triggered a furor in the Muslim world by publishing 12 cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in 2005.

Rana's trial is expected to last about four weeks.

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Top gov. witness in terror trial returns to stand (AP)

By SOPHIA TAREEN and EILEEN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Sophia Tareen And Eileen Sullivan, Associated Press – 59 mins ago

CHICAGO – The federal government's star witness was expected to reveal more potentially damaging details on Tuesday about the alleged close ties between Pakistan's main intelligence agency and the militant group blamed for the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks.

David Coleman Headley returned to witnesses stand in the terrorism trail of a Chicago businessman accused of collaborating in the three-day siege of India's largest city — a day after gave a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and described how he was recruited by a member of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, known as ISI, to take part in the Mumbai plot.

As the government's first and main witness in the trial of his longtime friend Tahawwur Rana, Headley's testimony outlining links between the ISI and Lashkar could inflame tensions between Pakistan and India and place even more pressure on the already frayed U.S. and Pakistani relations.

It also could add to the questions about Pakistan's commitment to catch terrorists and the ISI's connections to Pakistan-based terror groups, especially after Osama bin Laden was found hiding out earlier this month in a military garrison town outside of Islamabad.

Headley already pleaded guilty to laying the groundwork for the Mumbai attacks that killed more than 160 people including six Americans, and he agreed to testify against Rana to avoid the death penalty, making him one of the most valuable U.S. government counterterrorism witnesses.

"Headley's testimony is a nail in the coffin of U.S.-Pakistani strategic cooperation," said Bruce Riedel, a former White House adviser on Middle Eastern and South Asian issues. "Until now his commentary has gotten very little attention outside India, now it will finally get the attention it deserves here."

The Pakistani government has denied the ISI orchestrated the Mumbai attacks, and a senior ISI official said Tuesday that the agency has no links to the terrorists behind the rampage. When asked about the testimony being heard in Chicago, the officer said "it is nothing." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because his agency doesn't allow its operatives to be named in the media.

On Monday, Headley, a Pakistani-American, spent hours detailing the formulation of the attacks and Rana's alleged help in providing cover for his surveillance activities in India.

Speaking so softly at times that attorneys had to remind him to speak louder, Headley said he has been involved with Lashkar-e-Taiba for more than a decade, but he wasn't working with someone in the ISI until years later after he was arrested by tribal police near Afghanistan. It was then he said he met a major in the ISI and told him what he and Lashkar were planning.

This ISI major, Headley said, was "very pleased" with what he heard and asked if Headley would work with one of his ISI associates. Headley agreed and said he was released from custody. Headley soon received a call from a man he referred to during his testimony as "Major Iqbal," which the U.S. government says is an alias. Headley said he then met Iqbal in a safe house in Lahore, Pakistan and described his plans with Lashkar and his assignment to take videos of Mumbai in preparation of an operation.

Headley said ISI provided financial and military assistance to Lashkar, and he assumed they worked under the same umbrella. He said Iqbal and his Lashkar handler, Sajid Mir, were in communication, but he would meet with them separately in Pakistan. Headley said when he would take videos of sights in Mumbai, he would first share them with Iqbal and then with Mir.

"All these things I discussed with Major Iqbal, I went over it with Sajid again," Headley told jurors.

Before moving to Mumbai in late 2006, Headley said he first came to Chicago, met with Rana and explained the plot in hopes of persuading Rana to let him open a branch of his immigration services business as a cover. With Rana's help, Headley said he set up an immigration consulting business in Mumbai and secured work visas to travel in and out of India..

Rana, a Canadian citizen who has lived in Chicago for years, has pleaded not guilty in the case. His name is the seventh one on the federal indictment, and the only defendant in custody. Among the six others charged in absentia are Mir and Iqbal.

Rana is also accused of helping arrange travel and other help for Headley, who planned a separate attack that never happened on a Danish newspaper, which printed cartoons of Prophet Muhammad that angered Muslim.

Headley and Rana, both 50, met as classmates at a prestigious military boarding school in Pakistan and have stayed in touch. Defense attorneys told jurors their client was taken advantage of by his friend and did not know what was in store. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker said Rana was not duped and knew of the plans, both in Mumbai and Denmark.

Defense attorneys were expected scrutinize Headley's credibility as a witness, saying he has been motivated to change his story and that he was working for the U.S. government even as he said he was working for Lashkar and ISI.

Headley, born Daood Gilani in the U.S., has also been an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration after a drug conviction.

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Mumbai terror trial gets under way in Chicago (AP)

CHICAGO – A Chicago courtroom could become the unlikely venue for revealing alleged connections between the terrorist group blamed for the 2008 rampage that killed more than 160 people in Mumbai and Pakistan's main intelligence agency, which has come under increased scrutiny following Osama bin Laden's killing.

Jury selection began Monday in the case against Chicago businessman Tahawwur Rana, who is accused of helping a former boarding school friend serve as a scout for the militant group that carried out the three-day attack in India's largest city. Though the accusations against Rana are fairly straightforward, the trial's implications could be enormous.

To make their case, federal prosecutors may lay out alleged ties between Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group blamed for the attacks, and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, known as the ISI. The trial comes amid growing suspicion that the ISI was complicit in harboring bin Laden, who was killed by Navy SEALs during a May 2 raid, and could lead to further strains in the already frayed relations between Pakistan and the U.S.

The key government witness could be David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani-American with a troubled past who pleaded guilty last year to laying the groundwork for the Mumbai attack by Lashkar-e-Taiba. Headley, who is cooperating with U.S. officials, told interrogators that the ISI provided training and funds for the attack against India, Pakistan's long nemesis.

Headley told authorities that Rana provided him with cover for a series of scouting missions he conducted in Mumbai. Headley also told interrogators that he was in contact with another militant, who has ties to al-Qaida, as part of a separate plot to bomb a Danish newspaper that printed cartoons that offended Muslims.

"What you'll have now in Chicago is a trial which will undoubtedly demonstrate links between Pakistan government agencies and one of the most competent terrorist organizations operating in South Asia — Lashkar-e-Taiba," said Seth Jones, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corp. The trial "just adds more fuel to an already tense situation."

Nearly 100 potential jurors showed up Monday at the downtown Chicago courthouse and were asked to fill out forms with a range of questions, from their views on Islam to knowledge of Pakistani militant groups. Jury selection is expected to last several days.

Rana, who has been in custody since his arrest in 2009, wore a gray suit and told potential jurors "Good morning" when they entered the courtroom. One of his attorneys, Charles Swift, told reporters he was encouraged by the diversity of the jury pool and was confident they would find his client not guilty.

Experts say Lashkar-e-Taiba, which means "Army of the Pure," was created with the ISI's help in the 1980s as a proxy fighting force to battle with India over the disputed territory of Kashmir. Counterterrorism officials say the group has gained strength with the help of the ISI since then, possibly with the help of retired officers. Pakistani officials have denied any ties with the group.

Lashkar-e-Taiba is accused of carrying out the three-day siege in Mumbai in which 10 gunmen attacked two luxury hotels, a Jewish center and a busy train station in India's financial capital, killing 166 people, including six Americans.

Rana, a Canadian national who has lived in Chicago for years, owns a Chicago-based First World Immigration Services, in the city's South Asian enclave. Prosecutors say Rana provided cover for Headley by letting him open a First World office in Mumbai and travel as a supposed representative for the agency. He also allegedly helped Headley make travel arrangements as part of the plot against the Danish newspaper that in 2005 printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, which angered many Muslims worldwide.

Rana is charged with providing material support for terrorism in India and Denmark. In court documents, Rana's attorneys have said he believed Headley was working for Pakistani intelligence. Headley also told authorities that he told Rana he "had been asked to perform espionage work for the ISI," according to a court filing.

Rana's attorneys have said part of their defense will be to show that Headley used his connections with the ISI to explain what he was doing. But U.S. District Court Judge Harry Leinenweber has ruled that that proposed defense was "objectively unreasonable."

Prosecutors have declined to comment ahead of the trial. A senior Pakistani intelligence official said he hasn't been following the trial and didn't have comment on it.

Some experts doubt the trial will reveal much, saying federal prosecutors may work hard to keep sensitive information from surfacing, and Headley is not the most credible witness. Headley reached a plea deal with prosecutors in the terrorism case in exchange for avoiding the death penalty and previously had been an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration after a drug conviction.

Details of Headley's possible testimony were revealed last year in an Indian government report detailing what he had allegedly told Indian investigators during questioning in Chicago.

In the report, Headley is cited describing how the ISI was deeply involved in planning the Mumbai attacks and how he reported to a man known only as "Major Iqbal," whom he called his Lashkar "handler." But some experts have suggested Iqbal could be a retired ISI officer, or that he may not even exist. In the indictment, his name is listed as unknown, and he's referred to only under the alias "Major Iqbal."

Rana is actually the seventh name on the indictment, and the only defendant in custody. Among the six others charged in absentia are "Major Iqbal" and Sajid Mir, allegedly another Lashkar-e-Taiba supervisor who also "handled" Headley.

Also indicted is Ilyas Kashmiri, who also is believed by Western intelligence to be al-Qaida's operational chief in Pakistan. During his travels for spying and training, Headley allegedly met with Kashmiri in Pakistan, and Kashmiri gave him instructions on how to carry out the Danish newspaper bombing, which ultimately never occurred.

___

Associated Press senior television producer Tracy Brown in Washington and AP writer Sebastian Abbott in Islamabad contributed to this report.

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US trial to open window on Pakistani terrorists (AFP)

CHICAGO (AFP) – A Chicago trial due to start Monday will open a window onto two Pakistani terrorist organizations and the men who plotted the 2008 Mumbai attacks, amid fears it could further inflame regional tensions.

It 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 55 kilometers (35 miles) from Islamabad on May 2.

Chicago businessman Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 50, is charged with providing material support to terrorists by acting as a messenger and providing a cover for a key figure in the bloody 60-hour Mumbai siege in which 166 people died.

David Coleman Headley -- Rana's old friend from military school in Pakistan -- has been cooperating with prosecutors ever since his October 2009 arrest and will be a star witness at Rana's trial.

Jurors are also expected to hear a series of conversations between the two men secretly recorded by the FBI.

Headley formally admitted to 12 terrorism charges in March 2010 after prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty or to allow him to be extradited to either India, Pakistan or Denmark to face related charges.

The Washington-born son of a former Pakistani diplomat and American woman, Headley admitted to spending months scoping out sites for the Mumbai siege and plotting to kill a Danish cartoonist.

In a plot that reads like a movie thriller, Headley spent two years casing out Mumbai, even taking boat tours around the city's harbor to find landing sites for the attackers and befriending Bollywood stars as part of his cover.

He was so eager to kill a Danish cartoonist, who sparked outrage with cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, that he began working seriously on that plot two months before the Mumbai attack.

Headley also had Bollywood and one of India's most sacred Hindu temples in his sights as he began plotting a second India attack during a March 2009 surveillance trip.

India and Washington blamed the Mumbai rampage on Pakistan's banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

The attacks stalled a fragile four-year peace process between the two nuclear-armed south Asian rivals which were only resumed in February.

Rana -- who holds Canadian citizenship -- insisted after his October 2009 arrest that he is a pacifist who was "duped" into letting his old friend use his immigration services company as a cover.

But in pre-trial motions, his lawyers proposed defending Rana's actions by arguing he believed Headley was working on behalf of the Pakistan's ISI spy service, not terrorists.

Headley testified to a grand jury that he had told Rana about "my meetings with Sajid and others in Lashkar" and "how I had been asked to perform espionage work for ISI," court records show.

"I explained to him that the immigration office would provide a cover story for why I was in Mumbai," Headley said, according to court records.

Judge Harry Leinenweber ruled against this proposed defense on legal grounds -- Rana is being prosecuted for his actions in the United States and even if Headley were acting on behalf of the ISI neither he nor Rana would be exempt from US laws.

However, the trial could nonetheless lend credence to suspicions that the ISI was involved in the attack because three of the conspirators named in the indictment are ISI officers, court records showed.

"This is going to be yet another brick in this very large wall of suspicion that we have about Pakistan," said Khalil Marrar, a political science professor at DePaul University who has been following the case.

None of the men are in US custody and a spokesman for the US attorney's office declined to say whether the US government would be seeking their extradition or even knows their whereabouts.

Headley -- who changed his name from Daood Gilani so he could hide his Pakistani heritage -- joined LeT in 2002, attending terrorist training camps five times over the next three years.

He began working with an Al-Qaeda-linked group in Pakistan called Harakat-ul-Jihad-Islami on the Danish plot after LeT became distracted with the final planning for the Mumbai attack, a plea agreement said.

Jury selection in Rana's begins Monday. Opening statements are not expected until May 23.

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Boxer pleads innocent in Danish terror trial (AP)

COPENHAGEN, Denmark – A Chechen-born amateur boxer accused of preparing a letter bomb for a Danish newspaper that printed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad pleaded innocent to terrorism Monday at the start of his trial in Copenhagen.

Lors Doukayev, a 25-year-old citizen and resident of Belgium, pleaded guilty to another charge of illegal weapons possession for bringing a handgun and an explosive substance to Denmark.

Doukayev was arrested in September after a small explosion in a hotel bathroom in Copenhagen. Investigators believe he was trying to assemble a letter bomb when it went off by accident.

They say the likely target of the bomb was the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which sparked fiery protests in Muslim countries by printing 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005.

Dressed in baggy jeans and a leather jacket, Doukayev denied any links to terrorism and said he came to Denmark as a tourist. He told the court that he carried the gun and explosives for personal protection, and that he was trying to dismantle the bomb when it went off.

The device was filled with steel pellets and contained triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, which terrorists used in bombs that killed 52 people in London in 2005. Doukayev received cuts to his face in the explosion but wasn't seriously injured.

Investigators initially had difficulty determining Doukayev's identity, saying he used three different names in his travel documents, and had even scratched the serial number off his prosthetic right leg.

After a newspaper found his boxing coach at a gym in Belgium, Danish police were able to identify him together with Belgian authorities.

During the opening arguments, prosecutors said a letter found in Doukayev's prosthetic leg led police to an apartment in Belgium where they found a bomb-making manual and videos calling for jihad, or holy war.

The trial is expected to end later this month.

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