Headley's secretary, Mahrukh Bharuch told India's National Intelligence Agency that she had been told the office was going to be closed down in July 2008.
Even though business didn't pick up, though, it was extended to November 15 — the time of Rana's visit. Why Rana wanted to visit India just as his business wound down is unclear.
In the months after Mumbai, e-mail and intercepted conversation show Rana became increasingly enmeshed in a plot to bomb the Jyllands Posten — a Copenhagen newspaper which had incensed many Muslims by publishing cartoons denigrating Prophet Mohammed.
There was little evidence that he had a significant role in 26/11, though, bar the word of his best friends — and that alone proved inadequate to move jurors.
Rana's conviction on two terrorism-related charges mean the 50-year-old businessman could spend the next three decades in jail. He has been cleared, though, of having had a direct role in the 26/11 carnage.
Much of this story has been assembled from one man's words: Pakistani-American jihadist David Headley, the Lashkar intelligence operative who gathered the videotape which guided the gunmen to their targets in November, 2008.