Rana pleads not guilty to plotting 26/11

Pakistani-Canadian Tahawwur Hussain Rana on Monday pleaded not guilty of being involved in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. The case is now scheduled for a status hearing in a Chicago court on February 24.

In a statement, a spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, which is prosecuting the case, said: “Tahawwur Hussain Rana appeared in Federal Court this morning before US Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys and entered a plea of not guilty to the three counts against him in the superseding indictment returned on January 14.”

Rana (49) was arrested by the FBI with David Coleman Headley in October 2009.

While Rana had originally not been charged in connection with 26/11, those charges as a co-conspirator were levelled against him by the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois on January 14.

Rana was indicted on three counts, most importantly for “providing material support in preparation for and in carrying out the Mumbai attacks”. He was also charged with providing material support for a terrorism plot in Denmark and also for providing material support to the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba.

Rana faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment under the new charges, while earlier he faced up to 30 years in prison.