Feds: Chicago men discussed terror attack in India

CHICAGO — A Chicago man charged with scheming to launch a terrorist attack on a Danish newspaper also discussed a possible attack against a military college in India and advised a member of a Pakistan-based terrorist group on how to slip people into the U.S., prosecutors said Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors said in court papers that Chicago businessman Tahawwur Rana in September talked with another man charged in the case about designating the National Defense College of India as among possible targets they might pursue.

“Recorded conversations involving the defendant, emails and other documentary evidence demonstrate that the defendant conspired to provide and did provide material support to the conspiracy,” prosecutors said in court papers.

Rana, 48, and another man, David Headley, 49, are charged with conspiring to attack the Copenhagen newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which sparked outrage in much of the Muslim world in 2005 by publishing 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The court papers were filed as Magistrate Judge Nan Nolan met with attorneys to discuss the possible release of Rana on bond.

Prosecutors offered the new allegations to reinforce their argument that Rana should remain in the Metropolitan Correctional Center and not be released. Headley is scheduled to have a bond hearing later.

Defense attorney Patrick Blegen disputes government claims that Rana is a danger to the community and a flight risk. He said friends and relatives in Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Texas will post their homes to secure a bond.

With supporters in Canada also willing to post cash, Rana could post a bond of $1 million to guarantee that he would not flee to avoid prosecution, Blegen said.

Blegen told reporters after meeting with Nolan that Rana, if asked about the new allegations against him, would deny them.

Nolan did not rule on the bond and scheduled another hearing on the request for next Tuesday.

In a complaint unsealed last week, prosecutors quoted Rana and Headley as discussing an unspecified “defense college” as a potential terrorist target.

The court papers filed Tuesday said that on a long automobile drive in September, Rana and Headley “discussed Denmark and other targets, including the National Defense College in India — Rana in fact used the English word target.”

There was no detail in the court papers on whether anything substantial had been done in regard to the school in India or whether it was merely talk. Prosecutors have said there were five such potential terrorist projects.

Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, declined to elaborate on the allegation.

The court papers also said that in late 2008 Rana, who operates a Chicago immigration law service, had a discussion with a someone affiliated with the group Lashkar-e-Taiba who was identified only as Individual B. The Pakistan-based organization has been declared a terrorist group by the U.S. government, and India claims it was responsible for the commando-style assault that killed 166 people in Mumbai last November.

The discussion, conducted by e-mail, included a warning from Rana not to use student visas to get people into the country. He said a school “reports to immigration on a hot line that students are missing and immigration at 5 a.m. is at their place of residence or work, wherever they can pick them up.”

“Then they offer them a deal and ask them to tell how they came. … How they paid, what amount whom, who did what,” the e-mail said, allegedly quoting Rana.

“Only one loophole is business which they believe is OK,” it said. The e-mail and court papers did not elaborate. Rana asked Individual B to delete the e-mail from his computer, according to the court papers.

Prosecutors also said in the court papers that when another, unnamed individual suggested to Rana that he might back-date a document to 1983 to help someone get a visa Rana warned him that he would have to use a typewriter because there were no laser printers in 1983.