Headley filmed Oberoi Hotel to kill time before watching movie

Washington, Jun 15: Oberoi Hotel, one of the sites attacked during the 2008 Mumbai strikes, was not originally on the list of targets for surveillance given to David Headley by his ISI handler but he made a video of it after filming Chhabad House as he had an hour to spare before he could catch a movie.

This was revealed by the Pakistani-American LeT operative in his testimony before a Chicago court during co-accused Tahawwur Rana's recently-concluded trial.

Headley said Chhabad House was added to the list at the direction of his ISI handler Major Iqbal, who told him that this was a house from where the Israeli spy agency operates.

He said that the Oberoi Hotel was not on the list of targets submitted to him, but he took the video of the hotel as after taking the video of the Chhabad house, he had an hour left with him before he could watch a movie in the same area.

"First of all, did you take videotape of it, Mr Headley?" he was asked. "Yes," he said.

"Okay. Why? It was not on your list that you just mentioned a moment ago?" the US attorney asked.

"Because I was in the area, and I was going to watch a movie in a nearby theatre, and I had about an hour left. So I went there and I just made the video," Headley said.

When asked how close is the Oberoi to the landing point selected by them, Headley replied: "It is close." Headley said for each of the target sites, he used GPS to enter the coordinates.

PTI