NIA team to be set up to question Headley

NEW DELHI - India will soon form a team of investigators, including sleuths of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), to question Pakistani American terror suspect David Headley, who has pleaded guilty in a US court for his role in the Mumbai terror attacks.

The team, according to an official, will also comprise home ministry officials.

“The team that will also include some home ministry officials is likely to visit the US soon after it is formed. We are also preparing a set of questions to interrogate Headley and will also start a judicial process soon,” an official told IANS on condition of anonymity as the government wants the process to be conducted away from the media glare.

The official said the NIA had also been asked by Home Minister P. Chidambaram to initiate the process and file charges against Headley, who is in a US jail and has confessed to having plotted the 2008 Mumbai terror attack with the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in Pakistan.

Headley Thursday entered into a plea bargain with prosecutors in the US; he will be spared the death sentence and extradition to India or Denmark, where he is also alleged to have schemed terror attacks.

The NIA has registered a case against Headley but has not formally charged him in a court or started a judicial process against him.

The development comes two days after Attorney General and head of the US Justice Department Eric Holder spoke with Chidambaram over the phone, assuring him that India will have early access to Headley to interrogate him, possibly in a pre-trial stage.