BRIG HEMANT MAHAJAN NATIONAL SECURITY

Chicago jury plain stupid or complicit

The reason I have recounted the story of Nanavati’s trial and how it led to
the scrapping of jury trials in our country is to highlight the vagaries of
a system that depends on the untested intelligence of randomly selected
jurors. Those vagaries have once again been highlighted by the absurd
verdict in the jury trial of the Pakistani Canadian terrorist, Tahawwur
Hussain Rana, in a Chicago court. The jury has held him guilty of two of the
three charges levelled against him on the basis of the same evidence,
strangely absolving him of the most serious crime, that of his being
involved in the November 26, 2008, attacks on multiple targets in Mumbai by
Pakistani *jihadi*s in an operation plotted by the ISI and executed by its
pet terrorist organisation, the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba. The evidence in the case,
largely based on the testimony of Pakistani American Daood Gilani, now known
as David Coleman Headley, an American intelligence asset-turned-ISI/Lashkar
operative who has struck a plea bargain to avoid the death sentence, as well
as Rana’s own statements during interrogation and on affidavit, amply
demonstrate that he was involved neck-deep in facilitating the mass murder.

This is what the jury was told: Rana knew of the ISI-LeT plot to attack
Mumbai; he knew of Headley’s links to the ISI and LeT; he was aware of
Headley’s connection with Al Qaeda through Ilyas Kashmiri (recently killed
in a US drone attack); despite that knowledge, he helped Headley to secure a
multiple entry visa to scout for targets in India by giving him the cover of
working as the agent of his ‘consultancy firm’, First World Immigration
Services; he arranged local logistics for Headley, including his contact
person, Bashir, in India; he and Headley discussed the outcome of the
latter’s scouting visits to India in April 2008; he knew Sajid Mir, the LeT
handler of the 10*jihadi*s involved in the attack; he was close to ‘Major
Iqbal’, the ISI pointperson for this strike. Yet, the jury found it fit to
absolve him of the charge of being involved in that ghastly bloodletting
which left at least 166 people dead and scores maimed and scarred for life,
while holding him guilty in the aborted attack on the offices of the Dutch
newspaper *Jyllands-Posteni* that had published cartoons allegedly
lampooning Prophet Mohammed, and of being involved with a ‘banned terrorist
organisation, the LeT.

There could be three reasons for the jury’s bizarre verdict. First, the
finding reflects the average American’s indifference towards events in
non-Western countries that do not impinge on their daily lives. Second, the
jurors are plain stupid, unable to comprehend the intricacies of a terrorist
plot of such proportions. Third, they were told to stand by god and America
and do that which shall serve their national interest: Absolve Rana, and
hence the ISI, of any involvement in 26/11 so that the US’s frontline ally,
Pakistan, is not exposed for what it is: A terror-sponsoring state. This is
important for another reason — to weaken the New York suit against the ISI
and LeT which is directed against the Pakistani Army’s intelligence agency
chief, Maj Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, and the chief terrorist of the LeT, Hafiz
Mohammed Saeed. Lastly, it serves to send a not-so-subtle message to India:
The US won’t punish Pakistan, no matter how horrendous its crimes against
India. Yet we persist with the fiction that America is our friend and our
Prime Minister singlemindedly pursues his single-point agenda of doing
Washington’s bidding.

Meanwhile, thankfully we didn’t have a jury sitting in on the trial of
Kasab, the ‘Butcher of Mumbai’. Given the preponderance of libtards among
the English-speaking classes and the proclivity of today’s media,
especially, news channels, to glorify terrorists, it is more than likely
that a jury would have given a ‘not guilty’ verdict, holding Kasab at best
guilty of entering India without valid papers. That would have fetched him
punishment meant for illegal immigration under the anodyne Foreigners Act