Chicago: A self-confessed key plotter of the Mumbai terror attack, David Coleman Headley on Wednesday testified that he identified ancient Somnath temple in India and Bollywood among several more targets he "liked" for future terror attacks.
Taking the stand for the third day in the trial of Pakistan-born Canadian businessman Tahawwur Rana, star prosecution witness Pakistani-American Headley said he identified the favoured targets to his one-time friend.
According to a transcript of their phone conversation read out aloud in court by Headley, four new targets favoured by him included Somnath temple in Gujarat, Bollywood, the Shiv Sena office in Mumbai and the Danish newspaper that in 2005 printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
Rana "told me to stop doing what I was doing and he was offering me a job at his farm," Headley said.
"I spoke to Rana about four targets and he said `If you did those four targets, you are still not going to stop`," Headley said recalling the conversation.
Rana also said that nine of the 10 Mumbai attackers who died should be given Pakistan`s highest military bravery award, Nishan-e-Haidar, Headley testified.
Headley also talked about his conversation with another of his Pakistani handlers Pasha and the new email he would create.
According to the transcript of Pasha-Headley conversation, read out by the federal prosecutor, Headley said: "Major Iqbal went to my house in Lahore in Pakistan, my employee told me over there."
Headley also testified that handlers of Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) guided the attackers on phone and even asked them to change tactics to challenge the advancing commandos as they watched the 2008 Mumbai carnage live from Pakistan.
Headley said his LeT handler Sajid Mir, who was in Karachi during the Mumbai attack, was in contact with the attackers via phone and he was watching TV coverage of the siege and seeing what was going on in India.
IANS
