India to write to US for access to Headley

BRASILIA/NEW DELHI - Armed with support from US President Barack Obama, India is to send a formal letter to the US for access to David Coleman Headley, the American-Pakistani LeT operative who has confessed his role in plotting the Mumbai terror attack.

“We are still going through the legal process,” sources said Saturday, five days after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh raised the issue with Obama in Washington.

“India will now send a formal letter to the US authorities seeking access to Headley. Now is the question of the terms under which the US will give access to Headley,” the sources said.

Obama had assured Manmohan Singh that he was “fully supportive” of India’s request for access to Headley, and American officials are working through their legal system to make it possible.

Headley, who is in a US prison, has admitted to scouting targets for the Mumbai attack in November 2008, in which 166 people, including foreigners, were killed.

National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, when he met his counterpart James Jones, discussed the modalities and legal processes to enable India to get access to Headley.

Headley confessed to his role in the 26/11 carnage in a plea bargain in a Chicago court last month to avoid the death penalty.

The 49-year-old Headley also admitted to attending training camps in Pakistan operated by LeT on five separate occasions between 2002 and 2005.

Manmohan Singh returned to India Saturday after an eight-day visit to the US and Brazil where he attended the 47-nation Nuclear Security Summit, the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) summit and Brazil-Russia-India-China (BRIC) summits.