<p>Wearing a grey suit and a white shirt, Rana waited with his lawyers inside the courtroom at the Dirksen US Courthouse here as jury selection began amid tight security.<br /><br />Potential jurors will be asked to answer a questionnaire. The jury selection could take up much of the week. The trial is expected to last a month, with opening arguments not likely before May 23.<br /><br />The trial's star witness is expected to be Pakistani American David Coleman Headley, son of a Pakistani diplomat and an American mother - who has pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty - who changed his given name of Daood Gilani in 2006 to scout targets for the November 2008 Mumbai attack without arousing suspicion.<br /><br />He is reported to have told Indian investigators during questioning in Chicago last year how Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was deeply involved in planning the Nov 26-29, 2008 Mumbai attack that claimed the lives of 166 people, including six Americans.<br /><br />His LeT "handler" in the Mumbai attack was one "Major Iqbal", who is believed to be a retired ISI officer. In the indictment his name is listed as unknown.<br /><br />Besides Rana and "Major Iqbal", five others charged in absentia include Sajid Mir, allegedly another LeT supervisor who also "handled" Headley.<br /><br />Also indicted is Ilyas Kashmiri, the commander of the terror group Harakat-ul Jihad Islami (HuJI) who also is believed to be Al Qaeda's operational chief in Pakistan.<br /><br />During his travels for spying and training, Headley allegedly met with Kashmiri in Pakistan, and Kashmiri gave him instructions for a plot for an attack on a Danish newspaper for publishing cartons of Prophet Muhammad.<br /><br />Rana, who owned an immigration business in Chicago, is charged with letting Headley use the business as cover to travel abroad on scouting trips in connection with both plots.<br /><br />The relationship between Rana, and Headley who become friends while attending military school in Pakistan in their youth, will be a central issue in the trial, which will also feature secretly recorded calls and coded e-mail messages.<br /><br />Rana's attorneys have argued that he was duped into helping an old friend. <br /><br />Rana, a father of three, has no criminal background.<br /><br />The trial is being closely monitored by India because it may unmask the links between Pakistan's spy agency ISI and terrorists, official sources said in New Delhi.<br /><br />The sources said that while India has all along been maintaining that the Inter-Services Intelligence was behind the Rana's trial "will provide evidence" <br />that the attack was financed by Major Iqbal.<br /><br />"What we would be looking at is evidence against the ISI that will corroborate what India has been saying all these months," a top official told IANS.<br /><br /></p>
<p>Wearing a grey suit and a white shirt, Rana waited with his lawyers inside the courtroom at the Dirksen US Courthouse here as jury selection began amid tight security.<br /><br />Potential jurors will be asked to answer a questionnaire. The jury selection could take up much of the week. The trial is expected to last a month, with opening arguments not likely before May 23.<br /><br />The trial's star witness is expected to be Pakistani American David Coleman Headley, son of a Pakistani diplomat and an American mother - who has pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty - who changed his given name of Daood Gilani in 2006 to scout targets for the November 2008 Mumbai attack without arousing suspicion.<br /><br />He is reported to have told Indian investigators during questioning in Chicago last year how Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was deeply involved in planning the Nov 26-29, 2008 Mumbai attack that claimed the lives of 166 people, including six Americans.<br /><br />His LeT "handler" in the Mumbai attack was one "Major Iqbal", who is believed to be a retired ISI officer. In the indictment his name is listed as unknown.<br /><br />Besides Rana and "Major Iqbal", five others charged in absentia include Sajid Mir, allegedly another LeT supervisor who also "handled" Headley.<br /><br />Also indicted is Ilyas Kashmiri, the commander of the terror group Harakat-ul Jihad Islami (HuJI) who also is believed to be Al Qaeda's operational chief in Pakistan.<br /><br />During his travels for spying and training, Headley allegedly met with Kashmiri in Pakistan, and Kashmiri gave him instructions for a plot for an attack on a Danish newspaper for publishing cartons of Prophet Muhammad.<br /><br />Rana, who owned an immigration business in Chicago, is charged with letting Headley use the business as cover to travel abroad on scouting trips in connection with both plots.<br /><br />The relationship between Rana, and Headley who become friends while attending military school in Pakistan in their youth, will be a central issue in the trial, which will also feature secretly recorded calls and coded e-mail messages.<br /><br />Rana's attorneys have argued that he was duped into helping an old friend. <br /><br />Rana, a father of three, has no criminal background.<br /><br />The trial is being closely monitored by India because it may unmask the links between Pakistan's spy agency ISI and terrorists, official sources said in New Delhi.<br /><br />The sources said that while India has all along been maintaining that the Inter-Services Intelligence was behind the Rana's trial "will provide evidence" <br />that the attack was financed by Major Iqbal.<br /><br />"What we would be looking at is evidence against the ISI that will corroborate what India has been saying all these months," a top official told IANS.<br /><br /></p>