Prosecutors accused a Chicago businessman Monday of facilitating the November 2008 terrorist attacks that killed more than 160 people in Mumbai, India. But the defense argued that he was an unwitting victim betrayed by a business associate and longtime friend.
As Tahawwur Hussain Rana's trial began in a Chicago courtroom Monday, prosecutors said he allowed his office, First World Immigration Services, to be used as a front for a co-conspirator traveling abroad to scout possible locations for the terrorist attacks, according to court records.
Rana is also accused of taking part in a plot to bomb the offices of a Danish newspaper that had published irreverent cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed and angered Muslims across the world.
He has pleaded not guilty.
Defense attorney Charles Smith didn't deny Rana's connections with David Coleman Headley, who pleaded guilty to terrorism charges related to the Mumbai attacks last year.
The two men were classmates in high school and frequently loaned money to each other over the years, Smith said in his opening statement.
