India hopes for access to Headley, bargain no ’setback’ (Second Lead)

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, stressing that the Pakistani American’s plea bargain to escape the death sentence for planning the Mumbai mayhem was “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.

According to Chidambaram, India has “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.”

He also said that the 49-year-old Headley’s plea bargain “is not a setback for India” although this 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 also noted that Headley might have escaped the death penalty but he would be in jail for the rest of his life.

“It appears the prosecution will seek a life sentence but in the US, life imprisonment means imprisonment for the natural life,” 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 also admitted that he attended training camps in Pakistan operated by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) on five separate occasions between 2002 and 2005.