FBI: Pakistani-American Suspects Planned to Attack Danish Newspaper Jyllands-Posten

Men walk past Tahawwur Hussain Rana's office, which says "Immigrant Law Center" in Chicago, October 28, 2009. Rana is one of two men who has been arrested and charged with plotting to attack Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten whose cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed -- including one with him wearing a bomb in a turban -- led to deadly protests by Muslims, the U.S. Justice Department said on October 27. The two men faced a bond hearing in U.S. Federal Court Wednesday.


(CHICAGO) — Two Chicago men who were schoolmates in Pakistan plotted terrorist attacks against a Danish newspaper that triggered widespread protests by printing cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, federal prosecutors said Tuesday in announcing charges against the men.

David Coleman Headley, 49, traveled to Denmark in January and July to conduct surveillance on possible targets, including the Copenhagen and Aarhus offices of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, prosecutors said in criminal complaints filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 48, helped arrange Headley's travel, prosecutors said. Danish authorities said there could be more arrests.

According to U.S. prosecutors, Headley visited the newspaper's Copenhagen offices in January and told employees he represented Rana's business, First World Immigration Services, and that the business was considering opening offices in Denmark and might buy advertising.

Head of Denmark's Security and Intelligence Service Jakob Scharf attends a news conference, about the arrest of two Chicago men, at its headquarters in Soeborg, Copenhagen October 27, 2009.


While in Denmark, Headley asked Rana to watch for a follow-up e-mail from an advertising representative from the paper and to ask First World's Toronto and New York offices to "remember" him in case the newspaper called, prosecutors said. They said Rana corresponded with a newspaper representative and posed as Headley.

Prosecutors said Headley told FBI agents after his Oct. 3 arrest at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport that the initial plan called for attacks on the newspaper's offices, but that he later proposed just killing the paper's former cultural editor and the cartoonist behind the drawings, which triggered outrage throughout the Muslim world. He described his plans to contacts in Pakistan as "the Mickey Mouse project," according to the FBI.

The newspaper published twelve cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in 2005. One cartoon showed Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban. Any depiction of the prophet, even a favorable one, is forbidden by Islamic law as likely to lead to idolatry.

Headley, a U.S. citizen who changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006, is charged with conspiracy to commit terrorist acts involving murder and maiming outside the United States. He could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted. He was arrested as he boarded a flight to Philadelphia, the first leg of a trip to Pakistan.



Headley and Rana are each charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorism conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. Rana, who is a Canadian citizen, was arrested Oct. 18 in his home.

Headley's attorney, John Theis, said he would have no comment. Rana's attorney, Patrick Blegen, said that his client "is a well respected businessman in the Chicagoland community."

"He adamantly denies the charges and eagerly awaits his opportunity to contest them in court and to clear his and his family's name," Blegen said. "We would ask that the community respect the fact that these are merely allegations and not proof."

Nobody answered a knock at the door at Rana's home on Tuesday. A phone listing for Headley could not be found.

Associated Press Writers Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen and Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed to this report.

TIME