66 Facts About David Headley

David Headley assisted the Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba in planning the 2008 Mumbai attacks in India, providing multiple surveillance and terrorist reconnaissance missions throughout central Mumbai.

Under the direction of Lashkar representatives, Headley performed five surveillance missions in Mumbai to scout targets for the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

David Headley was arrested at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago with co-conspirator Tahawwur Hussain Rana while on his way to Pakistan in October 2009.

David Coleman Headley was born Daood Sayed Gilani on June 30,1960, in Washington, DC, to a Pakistani father and an American mother.

David Headley's father Sayed Salim Gilani was a well-known Pakistani diplomat and broadcaster, while his mother Alice Serrill Headley worked as a secretary at the Pakistani embassy in Washington DC, and hailed from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

David Headley has a younger sister, Syedah, and a half-brother, Danyal.

Shortly after David Headley was born, his family left the United States and settled in Lahore, Pakistan.

David Headley stood out because of his light skin color and the heterochromic coloration of his eyes.

David Headley's mother was unable to adapt to Pakistani culture and returned to the US Due to Pakistani custody rules, she was forced to leave her children with their father in Lahore.

David Headley was raised in a political environment steeped in Pakistani nationalism and Islamic conservatism, both of which were amplified by Pakistani tensions with India.

David Headley went on to attend the elite Cadet College Hasan Abdal, a boys' international military prep school, while there, he befriended co-conspirator Tahawwur Hussain Rana.

In 1977, at the age of seventeen David Headley left Pakistan following a difficult relationship with his Pakistani stepmother, and moved in with his biological mother in Philadelphia, where he helped her manage pubs such as the Khyber Pass Pub and the adjacent Miss David Headley's Wine Bar.

David Headley was a student at the Community College of Philadelphia but dropped out without a degree in the 1990s.

David Headley eventually moved to New York City and opened a video rental business in Manhattan.

When he was twenty-four, David Headley smuggled half a kilogram of heroin out of Pakistani tribal areas and used Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Pakistani army doctor who David Headley knew from military school, as an unwitting shield.

In 1988, while he was traveling to Philadelphia from Pakistan, David Headley was arrested by police in Frankfurt, West Germany after two kilos of heroin were found hidden in a false bottom in his suitcase.

David Headley quickly made a plea deal when his case was handed over to the US Drug Enforcement Administration, agreeing to surrender his partners in Philadelphia in exchange for a lighter sentence.

David Headley's cooperation earned him four years in prison while his two associates were sentenced to eight and ten years.

David Headley managed to overcome his addiction to heroin, but was still involved in the drug trade.

In early 1997, David Headley was arrested with another man in a DEA sting operation when he tried to smuggle heroin into the country from Pakistan.

David Headley quickly offered his services as a confidential informant to the DEA.

David Headley allegedly tried to set up heroin dealers with jailhouse phone calls that were not monitored by DEA agents.

In exchange for information about Pakistani drug contacts, David Headley received a considerably lighter sentence than his co-defendant from the 1997 arrest: fifteen months in jail and five years of supervised release.

David Headley married a Pakistani woman named Shazia and fathered two children with her.

David Headley made further trips to Pakistan without the knowledge of US authorities, immersing himself in LeT ideology.

David Headley befriended LeT's spiritual leader, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, and committed himself to the group's struggle against India, which was supported by the Directorate for Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.

Under questioning by two Defense Department agents, in the presence of his DEA handlers, David Headley denied the accusations and cited his work for the DEA as proof of his loyalty to the US David Headley was cleared, and the DEA did not write a report on his interrogation.

On November 16,2001, six weeks after his interrogation, Leader and Assistant US Attorney Loan Hong made a joint application to Judge Amon asking for David Headley's supervised release to be terminated three years early.

However, the DEA has claimed that David Headley wanted his probation lifted so he could travel to Pakistan for family reasons.

David Headley himself has claimed that he ended his work for the DEA in September 2002; other agencies claim that he remained a DEA operative as late as 2005.

In February 2002, David Headley went to a LeT training camp and attended a three-week introductory course on LeT ideology and jihad.

David Headley married her at a Jamaican resort a few days later.

David Headley was interviewed three times by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The FBI agent investigating the matter speculated that David Headley's wife made her accusations because she had "an axe to grind" regarding his other marriage.

David Headley was never questioned, and the assault charge was eventually dropped.

The name change would make it easier for David Headley to hide his Pakistani ancestry from Indian authorities, who have strict entry requirements for those of Pakistani descent.

In January 2006, David Headley established ties with Adbur Rehman Hashim "Pasha" Syed, a retired Pakistan Army major and LeT militant, who put him in touch with Major Iqbal, a mysterious figure who is believed to have coordinated LeT activity through his capacity as an ISI officer.

Under sworn testimony, David Headley recalled meeting Iqbal and his superior, a Pakistani colonel, in a safe house.

Between 2007 and 2008, David Headley made five trips to Mumbai, scouting local landmarks where LeT terrorists would carry out the multi-pronged attack.

When LeT decided to target the Nariman House, a Jewish community center, David Headley visited the location posing as a Jew.

David Headley took boat tours to look for places where the attackers could reach the city through the waterfront; he found a landing location at a fishermen's slum in the Colaba area of southern Mumbai, where he gathered GPS coordinates.

David Headley visited the editorial offices of Jyllands-Posten in January 2009, claiming to be interested in buying ad space.

Elsewhere during his trip, David Headley collected video footage of Copenhagen, including the offices of Jyllands-Posten; looked into leasing an apartment that could be used by LeT's attack team; and inquired about getting a job as a secretary.

David Headley planned to return to Copenhagen during the summer of 2009.

However, when David Headley visited Derby on July 26,2009, Simon and Bash informed him that they did not want to participate in the Denmark plot and were unable to supply weapons, instead, offering him him US$15,000 in financing.

David Headley then traveled to Stockholm to meet a Farid, a veteran militant.

David Headley was unable to help Headley as he was under tight surveillance by the Swedish Police Authority.

David Headley was accused of traveling to Denmark to scout the Jyllands-Posten office and a nearby synagogue.

The FBI later additionally charged David Headley of conspiring to bomb targets in the Mumbai attacks and providing material support to LeT.

In March 2009, David Headley made another trip to India to conduct surveillance of the National Defence College in Delhi, and of Chabad Houses in various cities in India.

Indian investigators were surprised at how easily David Headley had obtained a visa to enter India, a process that is extremely difficult for Pakistani nationals and Pakistani-origin individuals.

David Headley falsely stated on his visa application that his father's name was William Headley and that his own name at birth was "Headley", a claim that was difficult to refute since the US passport, unlike the Indian one, does not provide the father's name, and does not require endorsements on name changes by the passport holder.

On his visits to India, David Headley befriended several people, including Rahul Bhatt, Bhatt said he never suspected David Headley of any wrongdoing.

Some Indian analysts have speculated that David Headley was a double agent for the Central Intelligence Agency that had infiltrated LeT, an accusation denied by the CIA.

David Headley stated that the ISI was engaged with the Lashkar commanders responsible for the Mumbai deaths and injuries at each and every stage of the plot.

David Headley has claimed that Ishrat Jahan, thought to be a case of staged police "encounter killing", was a trained LeT suicide bomber.

On May 31,2011 David Headley contradicted his previous statements, and testified that the Inter-Services Intelligence leadership was not involved in planning the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

The Hindustan Times stated that David Headley had visited Pune in July 2008 and March 2009 and referred to him as a Lashkar-e-Taiba member.

David Headley's report was shared with India's Union Home Ministry.

On January 24,2013, David Headley was sentenced by US District Judge Harry Leinenweber of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago to 35 years in prison for his part in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

David Headley had provided details on the operations of the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which planned the Mumbai attacks, and information that he provided to the government led to charges against Tahawwur Hussain Rana and six other terrorist figures.

On December 10,2015, a Mumbai court pardoned David Headley, making him an approver in the Mumbai case.

David Headley told the court that LeT made two unsuccessful attempts to carry out terror attacks before finally striking in November 2008, once in September and again in October.

On February 9,2016, it was reported that David Headley had confessed to a Mumbai court about LeT and Inter-Services Intelligence having penetrated into the ranks of the Indian Army, to work as spies.

David Headley said that an attack had been planned on the Indian defence scientists who were to meet at the conference hall in Taj Hotel, in Mumbai, in 2007.

On July 24,2018, it was reported that David Headley was seriously injured after being attacked in prison, and subsequently admitted to the critical care unit of Evanston Hospital of the NorthShore University HealthSystem.