A former businessperson in Chicago, who spent over 10 years in prison for aiding terrorist groups, was arrested to face murder charges in India for the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that killed over 160 people, PTI reported on Friday.

Tahawwur Rana, a Pakistani-born Canadian, has been charged in India for conspiring to plot and carry out the deadly attacks. He was recently granted an early release from a jail in Los Angeles after he told a court in the United States that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. However, he was rearrested on June 10, following an extradition request by India, where he is a declared fugitive.

An arrest warrant was issued against Tahawwur Rana by a special court of the National Investigation Agency in August 2018.

Rana was convicted in Chicago in 2011 for providing material support to the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which planned the attack in Mumbai, and for supporting a failed plot to attack a Danish newspaper that printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005, according to AP. The cartoons angered Muslims because visual depiction of the prophet are prohibited in Islam.

Assistant US Attorney John J Lulejian said India had informed the US that Rana is being prosecuted for a number of offences, including the conspiracy to commit murder. He made an initial court appearance on June 11. The offences for which Rana’s arrest warrant was issued are covered by the India-US Extradition Treaty, Lulejian added.

On Friday, US District Judge Jacqueline Chooljian scheduled Rana’s bond hearing for June 30. His attorney has been asked to submit his plea by June 22. The US government’s response is due by June 26.

The prosecutors said that Rana along with his childhood friend David Headley, conspired with others in Pakistan to help Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Harakat ul-Jihad-e-Islami, both US-designated terrorist organisations, to plan and carry out the Mumbai attacks.

The prosecution claimed that Rana knew Headley had trained as a terrorist. Headley also shared information with Rana about the scouting missions he conducted in Mumbai and of the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, where armed assailants shot down civilians.

Headley, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder, was sentenced to 35 years in prison. As part of his plea deal, he cannot be extradited to India. Rana was first arrested in Chicago in October 2009. Thereafter he went to trial in the US, where Headley testified for prosecution.

The jury had then convicted Rana of one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism in Denmark, and one count of providing material support to LeT. The jury, however, later acquitted Rana of one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism in India.