US cites secret evidence in Mumbai attack case

U.S. prosecutors preparing to try a Pakistani-born Chicago businessman on charges he aided the 2008 Mumbai attackers invoked a secrecy law on Wednesday to control evidence disclosures in the case.

Defendant Tahawwur Rana looked on during a federal court hearing where Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, and other prosecutors asked the judge for a private hearing to lay out the government's classified evidence. The judge set the hearing for March 29.

The U.S. law in question, the Classified Information Procedures Act, seeks to balance a defendant's rights against the government's desire to protect secrets and its information-gathering sources and methods.

Rana, 49, is charged along with American David Headley with providing support to the Mumbai attackers, which killed 166 people and set India-Pakistan relations on edge. Two Pakistanis have also been charged but they are not in custody.

Headley, 49, is cooperating with prosecutors, who have detailed his role scouting targets in Mumbai and elsewhere for Islamic militant groups.

Both Headley and Rana have pleaded not guilty.

The FBI made tape-recordings of Headley and Rana purportedly discussing the Mumbai attack and a plot to attack a Danish newspaper, according to court papers.

The newspaper plot, which never came off, was to be in retaliation for cartoons it published in 2005 depicting the Prophet Mohammad that enraged Muslims, the papers said.

The plots were backed by Pakistani-based Islamic militant groups that included Lashkar-e-Taiba, the papers said.

Rana's attorney, Patrick Blegen, met with Fitzgerald and a representative of the U.S. government privately both inside and outside the courtroom. Blegen said little about the evidence issue afterward, but he has filed court papers demanding the government provide specifics of how Rana supported Headley and the Mumbai attackers.

Prosecutors have said Rana was deeply involved, using his immigration business to provide cover for Headley's travels.