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On the stand Monday in the Indian port city where he and his comrades murdered more than 160 people, Lasab, 21, confessed to his part in the terror rampage.

But far from admitting he was a committed jihadist, Lasab portrayed himself as a poor man who signed up with the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba only for money.

He told Judge M. L. Tahilyani that he was broke and tired of his job working for decorator in Jhelum, a small town in Pakistan, and making a pittance," according to a beautifully written account by Vikas Bajaj and Lydia Polgreen in Tuesday's New York Times.

"He and a friend had hatched a plan. They would earn cash by robbing people. And to improve their banditry skills they would seek out military training from the easiest source available to a young Pakistani man: Islamic militants," Bajaj and Polgreen wrote.

Lasab and his friend went to the central market in Rawalpindi, he told the transfixed court, and asked where they might find holy warriors. They were directed to the office of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani group that has been carrying out terrorist attacks in Indian Kashmir for years.

Once in, however, they couldn't get out.

He and other unwitting future fighters were shipped to Karachi, the coastal city from which the raid on Mumbai was launched, "a world away from the Punjabi village where his family lived," in the Times account.

"There the young men were cut off from the world. [Lasab] said they and their trainers were not told where they would go next nor were they given any details about their mission, though it was clear that it would involve lethal weapons and deadly force."

The dream of easy money evaporated

"They told us we were to wait for some time," Lasab testified, and were warned sternly that "nobody will disobey" their orders.

Weeks later Lasab and the nine other men in the terrorist party set to sea in inflatable boats.

Only Lasab survived.

"I don't think I am innocent," he said, speaking in subdued Hindi. "My request is that we end the trial and be sentenced."