Court rejects plea to summon Headley as witness

MUMBAI - A Mumbai special court hearing the 26/11 trial Monday rejected a plea by one of the co-accused to make terror suspect David Headley, currently in a US jail, a witness in the Mumbai attack case.

Opposing the plea by Sabahuddin Ahmed to examine Headley as a witness, Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said that Headley was already an accused in the US court and hence could not give evidence as a witness.

Nikam further said that even if Headley was extradited to India, he would be treated as an accused and not as a witness in the 26/11 trial.

Moreover, Nikam pointed out that Headley belonged to one of the terror modules of the terror outfit, Lashkar-e-Taiba which had garnered information on the terror targets in the city.

Special Judge M.L. Tahaliyani, accepting the prosecution contention, observed that he had rejected a similar plea by Ahmed earlier, and no fresh grounds were out in the new appeal for examining Headley as a witness in the Mumbai case.

Ahmed, along with Fahim Ansari is a co-accused with the Pakistani terror-accused Mohammed Ajmal Amir alias Kasab, in the ongoing Mumbai terror attacks trial, the final arguments of which are currently underway.

Last Thursday, Headley had pleaded guilty to all the 12 charges against him before a Chicago court, and had confessed to working on behalf of several terror groups like the LeT.