NEW DELHI: In a crucial disclosure that confirms the direct role of Pakistani state actors in the 26/11 conspiracy, arrested LeT operative Tahawwur Hussain Rana has told a US court that he had provided material support for the attacks "at the behest of the Pakistani government and the ISI, and not the LeT". Rana, along with US citizen David Headley , had allegedly prepared the ground for the Mumbai carnage.
In court documents that have surfaced ahead of his April 16 trial in Chicago, Rana says his acts of providing material support to terrorists in the Mumbai attacks, as alleged by US prosecutors, "were done at the behest of the Pakistani government and the ISI, not the Lashkar terrorist organisation". The documents also cite Rana invoking his friend David Headley's Grand Jury testimony in which the latter has also implicated the ISI.
The shocking revelations come at an inconvenient time for the Manmohan Singh government, which had only recently agreed with Pakistan in Thimpu that 26/11 should not become a sticking point to resumption of their dialogue. It was in line with this Thimpu spirit that the Indian prime minister invited his Pakistani counterpart Yusaf Raza Gilani to watch the Indo-Pak cricket semi-final at Mohali last month.
This was followed by home-secretary-level talks where both India and Pakistan agreed to host each other's commissions for 26/11 probe, besides agreeing to release inadvertent crossers and ironing out visa issues. The dialogue will proceed further with the defence and commerce secretaries of the two nations due to hold talks in Islamabad later this month.
Rana's direct reference to Pakistani government and ISI as masterminds of the 26/11 attack comes at an equally inopportune time for both Pakistan and the US. ISI chief Shuja Pasha is currently visiting Washington DC with a laundry list of demands as the US tries to repair ties strained over the Raymond Davis episode. The Obama administration, according to reports, is scrambling to control fallout from the court proceedings in an effort to save its ally from being publicly exposed as a state sponsor of terrorism.
The disclosure that Rana and Headley have implicated the Pakistani government and its intelligence agency in the Mumbai attack came about indirectly when an Illinois district court rejected Rana's attempt at what is known as a "public authority defense", in which the defendant essentially argues that he did something at the behest of a government or its official authority.
Proposing the defence, Rana told the Illinois court that "he acted pursuant to his actual or believed exercise of public authority on behalf of the government of Pakistan and the ISI". This defense, Rana argued, would give him immunity from criminal proceedings in US courts under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act as "the ISI has authority to act in India to protect Pakistan's national interests" and he was acting at the behest of the ISI.
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