Prosecutors planned to call FBI agents and other remaining witnesses Wednesday to bolster the testimony of an admitted American terrorist who is the government's star witness in the trial of a Chicago businessman accused in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
David Coleman Headley, who has pleaded guilty to scoping sites for the siege on India's largest city, spent five days on the witness stand detailing how he received orders from a terrorist group blamed in the attacks, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and ISI.
But defence attorneys for the Chicago businessman on trial, Tahawwur Rana, said Headley's account is unreliable. They claim he implicated Rana, his longtime school friend, in the plot because he was motivated by the possibility of making a deal with prosecutors a technique he learned after becoming an informant for the US Drug Enforcement Administration following two heroin convictions.
``He hides the truth from everyone,' Rana attorney Charles Swift told reporters. ``David Headley at the center is a spider who manoeuvres everything in the web so it works out his way.'
Headley, who pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty and extradition, wrapped up testimony Tuesday. Prosecutors said they expect to call up to eight more witnesses starting Wednesday, including FBI agents.
Headley testified Tuesday that a militant leader with ties to al-Qaida who is also charged in Rana's case had plotted to attack US defence contractor Lockheed Martin. Headley told jurors that in August 2009, he used one of Rana's computers at his Chicago-based immigration services business to begin researching details about Lockheed Martin for Ilyas Kashmiri.
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