Tahawwur Rana to be extradited to India: Who is the Pakistani-Canadian 26/11 attacks plotter?

What exactly was Rana’s role in the attacks, his connection to David Headley and what has the Indian government argued? We explain.

Who is Tahawwur Rana?

Rana, who is now 62 years old, was a childhood friend of Headley. Headley, a US citizen who was born to an American mother and a Pakistani father, was arrested in October 2009 by US authorities and sentenced to 35 years in prison for his involvement in the Mumbai attacks.

The US government said, “Headley was convicted of conspiracy to bomb public places in India; conspiracy to murder and maim persons in India; six counts of aiding and abetting the murder of U.S. citizens in India; conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism in India…” He was also part of a conspiracy to bomb a newspaper office in Denmark.

Rana studied at the Hasan Abdal Cadet School in Pakistan, which Headley too attended for five years. After a stint as a doctor in the Pakistan Army, Rana moved to Canada, and was eventually granted Canadian citizenship.

What was Rana’s role in the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai?

Rana later went on to establish a consultancy firm called First World Immigration Services in Chicago, USA. It was a branch of this business in Mumbai that provided Headley with the perfect cover to identify and surveil potential targets for the Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

In the 26/11 attacks, on November 26, 2008, 10 LeT terrorists stormed into the financial capital of the country and for three consecutive days, the city of Mumbai was in the grip of terror. Major landmarks like the Taj hotel and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station were attacked. The violence claimed the lives of 166 people, including foreigners. Pakistani nationals who carried out the attacks reached India via boats, it was later found.

During court hearings, the US government attorneys argued that Rana was aware that Headley was involved with the LeT and that by assisting him and affording him cover for his activities, he was supporting the terrorist organisation and its associates.

Rana was arrested by American police soon after Headley’s arrest at Chicago’s O’Hare airport in October 2009.

He was convicted in Chicago in 2011 of providing material support to the LeT for the India attack and for supporting the never-carried-out plot to attack a Danish newspaper named Jyllands-Posten that printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005. The plan (dubbed the “Mickey Mouse Project” by al-Qaeda) was in retribution for publishing a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad, but was never carried out.

However, jurors in the US cleared Rana of a more serious charge of providing support for the attacks in Mumbai.

Rana’s lawyer said he had been duped by his high school buddy Headley, who plotted the attacks. The defense called Headley the government’s chief witness, who testified to avoid the death penalty, a habitual liar and manipulator.

They said that while the men had been old friends, Headley had a history of selling out friends and associates in order to escape with light prison sentences. The US government’s Department of Justice also noted in 2013 that Headley’s cooperation with authorities was a factor in why he was not sentenced to life imprisonment.

It was Headley’s testimony as a government witness at Rana’s trial in Chicago that led to Rana being sentenced to 14 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release. In 2013, Headley entered into a plea bargain with prosecutors in exchange for a reduced 35-year sentence, but Rana did not.

What did David Headley say of Tahawwur Rana?

Headley told prosecutors that in July 2006, he had travelled to Chicago to meet Rana and told him of the mission that the LeT had assigned to him. Rana had approved of Headley’s plan to establish a First World Immigration Services centre in Mumbai and helped him obtain a five-year business visa.

However, while deposing via video link at the Bombay City Civil and Sessions Court in February 2016, Headley claimed that he had informed Rana of his activities only a few months before the attacks in November 2008.

Rana’s chief concern, Headley claimed, had been that no terror activities should be conducted from the company’s office in Tardeo in central Mumbai. Headley also told prosecutors in Mumbai that not a single visa application had been processed at the centre. Rana also provided financial support to Headley, paying him Rs 67,605 in October 2006, $500 in November 2006, Rs 17,636 a few days later, and $1,000 in December 2006.

Just before their arrest in 2009, both men had also agreed that the nine Pakistani terrorists killed in the 26/11 attacks should receive the Nishan-e-Haider, the highest military award for gallantry in Pakistan.

At the trial, Headley also testified that Rana had approved his travel to Copenhagen, Denmark, posing as a representative of the Immigration Law Centre, the business name of First World Immigration Services. Business cards had been printed to help complete Headley’s cover.

During his 2016 deposition, Headley testified that he had sent his final will and testament to Rana before leaving for Mumbai in 2006. Asked why, Headley had said, “I thought it was a responsible thing to do in case I was killed or arrested. I wanted him to take care of some personal family matters for me.”

What was India’s extradition request?

In early 2020, Rana was granted early release on health grounds from the Terminal Island prison in Southern California after he tested positive for Covid-19. Fearing that Rana, who is now in the final years of his sentence, would be freed, India pushed its pending provisional arrest request warrant and extradition request for Rana.

After American authorities executed that request on June 10 that year, he was arrested in Los Angeles on June 19. In 2021, the Biden administration urged a federal court to certify India’s request for extradition. Assistant US Attorney John J Lulejian, in his submission before a federal US court in Los Angeles, said Rana met all criteria to be extradited to India for his trial, even as Rana’s attorney opposed this.

Earlier in 2011, India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) had filed a chargesheet against nine people including Rana, Headley, Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi of the LeT, al-Qaeda operative Illyas Kashmiri, and several Pakistan Army officials for planning and executing the attack.

In 2014, a Sessions Court in Delhi issued fresh non-bailable warrants against the nine men whom the NIA had listed as being absconding.