Lashkar-e-Taiba sent Killer for Bal Thackeray-arrested but escaped: Headley

LeT hitman sent to kill Bal Thackeray was arrested but escaped: Headley

http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/let-hitman-sent-to-kill-bal-thackeray-was-arrested-but-escaped-headley/story-mtv9pMX1ZE9dqG2dysUdUK.html

• HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times, New Delhi
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• Updated: Mar 24, 2016 12:30 IST          
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  Headley disclosed via video link from a US prison that he had visited the Sena headquarters twice during sorties to India to select possible targets for the LeT. (PTI Photo)
  • Shiv Sena founder-patriarch Bal Thackeray was on the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s hit list and the killer assigned for the task slipped out of police custody, revealed David Coleman Headley, the Pakistani-American operative of the terrorist outfit, on Thursday.
    The 56-year-old Headley or Daood Gilani, who was arrested in Chicago for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai carnage, disclosed via video link from a US prison that he had visited the Sena headquarters twice during sorties to India to select possible targets for the LeT.
    “I believe an attempt was made on the life of the Shiv Sena chief ... The man who made the attempt had escaped from police custody,” Headley told the special court of additional sessions judge GA Sanap.
    Read | David Headley says US DEA funded his Pak trip in drug smuggling case
    His replies came on the second day of his cross-examination conducted by lawyer Abdul Wahab Khan, the defence counsel for Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, who is facing trial for the 2008 attacks in which 10 LeT terrorists from Pakistan killed 166 people.
    “I don’t know how this attempt was made. I think the person was arrested but he managed to escape from police custody. I don’t have first-hand knowledge about this, though,” Headley said.
    The revelation exposed loopholes in the security network, more so in the state police force that often comes under fire for slip-ups and criminals escaping custody.
    He visited the party headquarters, Shiv Sena Bhavan, in Dadar twice and reiterated that the LeT’s target was the “champion of Hindutva”, Bal Thackeray.
    During his examination by special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam on February 12, Headley had confirmed the LeT’s plot to target Thackeray, but said nothing on an unsuccessful bid on his life and the attacker escaping police.
    Read | 10 things David Headley told NIA about 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks
    He told the court on Thursday that he was following instructions from Sajid Mir, his LeT supervisor in Pakistan.
    Headley revealed on Wednesday how the US financed his trip to Pakistan and claimed that he had donated about Pakistani Rs 70 lakh to the LeT till 2006, two years before the Mumbai attacks.
    He dismissed reports that he received money from the LeT. “I never received money from LeT ... This is complete nonsense. I gave funds to LeT ... throughout the period I was associated with them. My last donation was in 2006,” he told the court.
    He said after his arrest in 1998, the Drug Enforcement Authority (DEA) of the US had financed his trip.
    The terrorist, who faced conviction twice in 1988 and 1998 for alleged drug smuggling before the Mumbai siege, had indulged in criminal activities and violated his plea bargain agreements with the US government, the court was told.