Oct 27, 2009 4:59 pm US/Central
Two Chicago Men Charged In Overseas Terror Plot
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
Two Chicago men were locked up in federal jail Tuesday, accused of plotting terrorist attacks against overseas targets, among them
a Danish newspaper that published cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad four years ago. Prosecutors said they both attended military schools in Pakistan and had links to well known terrorist groups.
One of the men is the owner of a farm and
goat meat processing plant in Kinsman, Ill., near Morris, which was the subject of a secret raid recently.
David Coleman Headley, 49, took trips to Denmark in January and July to conduct surveillance on possible targets, including the Copenhagen and Aarhus offices of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, prosecutors said in criminal complaints filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 48, helped arrange Headley's travel, prosecutors said.
Danish authorities said there could be more arrests.
Headley, born Daood Gilani; and Rana, also known as Tahawar Rana; were charged earlier this month, but the criminal complaints against them were kept under seal until Tuesday.
Headley is a U.S. Citizen who lives primarily in Chicago, and he was arrested on Oct. 3 before boarding a flight to Philadelphia with intentions to travel to Pakistan. He was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit terrorist acts outside the United States, and one count of conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism.
Rana, a native of Pakistan and a Canadian citizen who also lives primarily in Chicago, was arrested on Oct. 18. Rana is the owner of a farm and meat processing plant in Kinsman, which federal agents raided the day Rana was arrested. He also owns several other businesses, including First World Immigration Services, which operates on Devon Avenue and also in New York and Toronto. Rana was charged with one count of conspiracy to provide material support for foreign terrorism.
The raid on the Kinsman farm Oct. 18 made headlines, but authorities would not say at the time why they were there. The farm is used to provide halal meat for Muslim customers, the U.S. Attorney's office said. On that day, federal Joint Terrorism Task Force agents also raided Headley and Rana's residences on Chicago's North Side, and a Chicago grocery store.
Federal agents claim Headley identified and cased potential targets of a terrorist attack in Denmark on two trips he made to that country in January and July 2009, and reported his findings to co-conspirators in Pakistan. Rana is accused of helping arrange Headley's travels and trying to hide the real reason Headley was going to Denmark.
In a statement, the U.S. Attorney's office said, "The criminal complaints unsealed today have exposed a serious plot against overseas targets by two Chicago based men working with Pakistani based terrorist organizations." Those organizations allegedly had ties to Al Qaeda.
The target of the plot, code-named the "Mickey Mouse Project" by the alleged terrorists, targeted the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, which had angered many Muslims when it ran 12 cartoons showing the prophet Mohammed, including one depicting him wearing a bomb-shaped turban in 2005. Any depiction of the prophet, even a favorable one, is frowned on by Islamic law as likely to lead to idolatry.
One person died in Lebanon when the Danish embassy was burned to the ground in protest.
In October 2008, Headley allegedly posted a message to the "abdalians" Internet discussion group stating that "I feel disposed towards violence for the offending parties," referring to the Danish cartoonists and others who he identified "as making fun of Islam."
Videos recovered from Headley's luggage found video of the Jyllands-Posten building, as well as a nearby Danish military barracks and the exterior and interior of Copenhagen's central train station.
Headley faces life in prison if he's convicted of conspiring to murder or maim persons abroad. Rana faces fifteen years in prison if he's convicted of providing material support to terrorism.
Rana's defense attorney Patrick Blegen said, "Mr. Rana is a well respected businessman in the Chicagoland community. He adamantly denies the charges and eagerly awaits the opportunity to contest them in court, and to clear his and his family's name."
Nobody answered a knock at the door at Rana's Chicago home on Tuesday. Neighbors, who asked not to be quoted, said they did not know Rana or his family.
Jakob Scharf, the head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, or PET, called the alleged plot "serious" but said investigators didn't believe an attack was imminent. He said the alleged plotters considered various options, including using handguns and explosives, and that investigators seized footage of sites around Denmark ranging from the newspaper's offices to Copenhagen's main train station.
"We cannot exclude that there could be more arrests" in Denmark or other countries, Scharf said at a Tuesday news conference.
U.S. prosecutors said Headley was carrying a data stick in his luggage that contained surveillance video footage of sites in Denmark. They said Headley reported and attempted to report on his efforts to individuals with ties to terrorism overseas, including at least one with links to al-Qaida.
Headley and Rana attended school together in Pakistan, the FBI said in court papers. Headley posted a message on an Internet discussion site in October 2008 saying he resented the Danish cartoons and adding: "I feel disposed toward violence for the offending parties."
According to prosecutors, Headley told FBI agents after his arrest that he received training from a terrorist organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba, starting in 2006. Headley told agents he had worked with Ilyas Kashmiri, a Pakistani based terrorist with al-Qaida links, and that Kashmiri helped plan an attack in Denmark, prosecutors said.
He said he had surveilled the paper's offices in Copenhagen and Aarhus "in preparation for an attack to be carried out by persons associated with Kashmiri and Individual A," prosecutors said. They did not identify Individual A.
Headley told agents he "proposed that the operation against the newspaper be reduced from attacking the entire building in Copenhagen to killing the paper's cultural editor, Flemming Rose, and the cartoonist who drew the cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, Kurt Westergaard, whom Headley felt was directly responsible for the cartoons."
Headley also told agents that he conducted surveillance of Danish troops posted near the newspaper, believing they might be a quick reaction force in the event of an attack. He also said he surveilled a Copenhagen synagogue in the mistaken belief of one of his contacts that Rose was Jewish."
Westergaard, 78, said in a posting on the Jyllands-Posten Web site that he trusts the Danish security services to keep him safe, but that "it is scary to be threatened."
"I am an old man so I am not so afraid anymore," he said.
U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in a statement that "the public should be assured that there was no imminent danger in the Chicago area."
"However, law enforcement has a duty to be vigilant to guard against not just those who would carry out attacks here on our soil but those who plot on our soil to help carry out violent attacks overseas," Fitzgerald said.
CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli, the Associated Press and the STNG Wire contributed to this report.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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