David Headley is serving a 35-year jail term in the US for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
Highlights
- David Headley praises 26/11 attacker Ajmal Kasab during testimony
- Identifying Kasab, Headley said 'May Allah's mercy be on him'
- Headley also admitted his wife congratulated him a day after 26/11 attack
Terrorist David Coleman Headley today identified Ajmal Kasab, the lone 26/11 attacker captured alive and hanged three years ago, and praised him during his testimony in a Mumbai court.
"Ajmal Kasab, Rahmatullah Alaih (May Allah's mercy be on him)," Headley said when special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam asked him to identify the photo of the Pakistani terrorist.
"It is an honorific phrase used for a great soul. The person saying it seeks blessings or mercy for him," explained Mumbai-based Islamic scholar Zeenat Shaukat Ali.
Asked if it could be used as a generic term for someone who had died, Mr Ali categorically refused. "It cannot be used for Kasab unless someone believes he has done something great."
Headley, a Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist, has been cold and remorseless as he has detailed his role in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks in which Kasab and nine other Pakistani terrorists sneaked into Mumbai and attacked the city's landmarks in pairs killing 166 people.
He told the court today how his wife had congratulated him on email after the deadly terror strike. "Yaar you did great," Headley said his wife wrote to him, and also, "Congratulations on your graduation, the ceremony was great."
Headley said he wrote back, "Thank you Jaanu (dear). I studied hard to get good grades."
David Headley is testifying via video link in a Mumbai court after turning approver or witness for the prosecution. Over four days he has made chilling revelations about how the Mumbai attack was planned and executed by the Pakistan-based Lashkar with the active collaboration of
Pakistan's spy agency, the ISI.
Headley, who is a US national, has said he
visited Mumbai seven times before the attack on a fake passport and surveyed sensitive installations like a Naval base and the
Bhabha atomic research centre, apart from the sites that the terrorists attacked on November 26, 2008.
Ajmal Kasab, who attacked the Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus or CST, was the only terrorist captured alive and was hanged in 2012.
David Headley is serving a 35-year jail term in the US for his role in the Mumbai attacks. He is deposing in the Mumbai court via video link from an undisclosed location in the US.