26/11 terrorists came from Karachi, says FBI

MUMBAI: A senior Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) official deposed in the 26/11 terror trial on Wednesday and laid bare Pakistan's
connection in the attack. The FBI forensic expert said that the GPS devices he had examined, stored a route from Karachi to Mumbai and back. This the first time that an FBI official has deposed in a terror trial in India.

"The GPS devices reflected way points and a route from the Gulf of Karachi to Mumbai and several points in between. The points were named by the users as JALA 1 (off Karachi) to JALA 4 (Mumbai),'' said the FBI official who had examined and analysed five GPS devices and a satellite phone recovered from the terrorists after the attack last year that killed 166 persons, including six Americans.

The FBI man, sporting a short salt-and-pepper crop and a beige suit, stepped inside the witness box in special judge M L Tahaliyani's high-security court opposite Kasturba hospital. He stood directly opposite Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving Pakistani gunman facing trial, swore solemnly to speak only the truth and answered questions posed by special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam. He was also cross-examined by Kasab's lawyer Abbas Kazmi. A team of six FBI men were in

the court.

The FBI testimony establishes the Pakistani connection in the conspiracy and its execution, said Nikam. An FBI man since 1992, said two of the GPS "specimens'' came with the data deleted, but he examined the others with "software created by the FBI team as well as the software that comes with these systems.'' Some were recovered from Kasab who, dressed in a white kurta, smiled and even laughed at times as the testimony progressed.

Judge Tahaliyani asked the witness, "I want to know what is JALA 1?'' "It is a name of the waypoint given by the user programmer. Jala 1 is off the gulf of Karachi and Jala 4 is the end point in Mumbai,'' the FBI expert said and also noted that the maps and lists he derived showed a return "trackback'' route which "is saved by the GPS automatically.'' There was a route stored in the GPS from Ocean 1 (off the coast of Pakistan) - Ocean A (Mumbai) - which was a trackback route.

A Thuraya satellite phone used by the terrorists to make and receive calls was also analysed and its data "transcribed physically by hand'', the witness said adding that it had four stored telephone numbers. Nikam said the numbers were still under investigation.

Nikam also got the FBI witness to point out the internal locations of Mumbai on the GPS seized from the Taj hotel attack to show that the terrorists had used the devices to manoeuver their way to Nariman House from Badhwar Park. The FBI witness, however, said that he could only tell the latitude and longitude and not the specific Mumbai locations.

Nikam also pointed out the points off Rawalpindi in one map to indicate that the terrorists were first given GPS training "locally''.

Kazmi asked a few questions including if the record was tampered only to help Mumbai police. "No, this was the data recovered from the devices,'' the FBI agent almost smiled. Later Kazmi said, "It was only a technical evidence, by one police trying to help.''