Chicago terror suspected expected to plead guilty

[March 18, 2010]  CHICAGO (AP) -- A Chicago man accused of helping scout out the Indian city of Mumbai before the 2008 terrorist attack that left 166 people dead is expected to plead guilty Thursday to federal charges.

David Coleman Headley, 49, also is accused of plotting to attack Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten, which in 2005 published a dozen cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that were highly offensive to Muslims. That attack never happened.

Headley and his attorneys have been negotiating with prosecutors for a plea agreement that would spare him from the death penalty in exchange for information about international terrorists, including a co-defendant who allegedly has ties to al-Qaida.

Headley pleaded not guilty in January to 12 counts, including six that charge a conspiracy to murder and maim people in India and provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The most serious charges, conspiracy to bomb public places in India and six counts of murdering U.S. nationals in India, could send him to the execution chamber.

Headley is scheduled to appear before U.S. District Judge Harry D. Leinenweber in Chicago on Thursday afternoon to change his plea.

Prosecutors declined to disclose specifically what charges Headley has agreed to plead guilty to. His intention to change his plea was disclosed in a court docket posting.

An attorney for Headley, John Theis, said only that negotiations have been going on and he expected Thursday's court action to be the result of those talks.

Headley is accused of conducting surveillance during five different trips to Mumbai to prepare for the attack during which 10 gunmen rampaged through the city's luxury hotels and railroad station, killing 166 people, including six Americans.

A co-defendant, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a 49-year-old Canadian national living in Chicago, is charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism in Denmark and India as well as to Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure), a Pakistani terrorist group believed to have launched the November 2008 attack in the Indian metropolis of Mumbai. Rana has pleaded not guilty.

Retired Pakistani military man Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed and terrorist leader Ilyas Kashmiri are also accused in the plot against the Danish newspaper. Kashmiri is described in the indictment as having regular contact with al-Qaida's No. 3, Sheikh Mustafa Abu al-Yazid.

The whereabouts of Syed and Kashmiri are unknown, although Kashmiri is said to have been based in the tribal areas of western Pakistan, home to a number of terrorist groups.

[Associated Press; By MIKE ROBINSON]

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