The man accused of being the lone surviving gunman in the Mumbai attacks told an Indian court on Monday that he was from Pakistan and wanted legal assistance.
In February, police formally charged Mohammed Ajmal Amir Qasab with "waging war" against India.
His trial began on Monday via video link in Mumbai, where armed gunmen killed 166 people in a three-day rampage in November last year. Nine gunmen were killed.
"He has confessed that he is from Pakistan and has also asked the court for legal assistance," Rakesh Maria, the chief Indian investigator in the case said.
The accused told the court he is from the Punjab province in Pakistan.
The attacks on India's financial hub sparked renewed tensions between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan, and Islamabad initially denied Qasab was a national before accepting that he was.
India has charged 38 people, including Qasab, in connection with the case.
The charge sheet, which runs to 11,000 pages, contains accounts of more than 2,200 witnesses as well as other evidence provided by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, which helped Indian police with the probe.
Those charged as key planners of the attacks included Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, founder of the militant Islamist Lashkar-e-Taiba group India says was behind the attacks, and other senior Lashkar members Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah.
Pakistan has admitted the Mumbai attacks were partly planned on its soil.
