The trial of a Chicago businessman accused of helping an old friend from military school in Pakistan plot the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks has been delayed until May, officials said Friday. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 49, has been held in jail since his October 2009 arrest on charges of helping plot an attack on the Danish newspaper that published incendiary cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in 2005.
Prosecutors allege that Rana helped his friend David Coleman Headley, a key suspect in the Mumbai attacks, by allowing him to use his immigration company as a cover for surveillance trips to India and Denmark. Headley co-operated with prosecutors and pleaded guilty in March. Rana, a Pakistani-born Canadian citizen who owns the Chicago-based First World Immigration Services that Headley allegedly used as a cover, insists that he is a pacifist who was "duped" by his friend.