Confession no setback, India hopes for access to Headley

NEW DELHI - India hopes to get access to 26/11 terror suspect David Headley to cross-examine or interrogate him, Home Minister P. Chidambaram said Friday, adding that the Pakistani American’s confession to planning the Mumbai mayhem “is not a setback to India”.

“Headley has agreed to fully and truthfully testify in any foreign judicial proceedings held in the US. We will continue to press for access to Headley in that he will testify in a court or subject himself to interrogation,” Chidambaram told reporters here.

He was speaking after a cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

“We have already been given significant amount of information (on Headley’s role in the Mumbai attacks). Access will give us an opportunity to get more information. Headley has agreed to testify and there is a good chance he will testify in proceedings when Indian authorities will get to examine him either in court or through video-conferencing or through a letter rogatory,” the minister said.

He said that Headley’s confession, in a plea bargain for escaping the death sentence, “is not a setback for India” although this also means that he will not be extradited to India, Denmark or Pakistan.

“We have not given up our plea for extradition. We will have to wait and see what happens (at Headley’s court appearance),” Chidambaram said.

The minister said the situation becomes complicated if an individual is charged with crime in two countries.

“If he had committed a crime here and was a fugitive in the US, then extradition would have been easier. Since he was also charged in the US, extradition becomes difficult,” he pointed out.

“Six Americans were also killed in the Mumbai attacks and because of this, the FBI was obliged to prosecute. Since he was apprehended in the US, we knew there would be a problem in extraditing him,” Chidambaram said.

He pointed out that Headley had not been charged in India “and for good reason. We will charge him at the appropriate time”.

Headley Thursday pleaded guilty to a dozen federal terrorism charges in a Chicago court and admitted his role in planning the 2008 Mumbai terror attack.

Headley, 49, also admitted that he attended training camps in Pakistan operated by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) on five separate occasions between 2002 and 2005.