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US had informed India of Headley's plea bargain
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March 20, 2010 02:22 IST
The US administration had informed the Indian government before it finalized a deal with David Coleman Headley to change his plea to guilty, sources said.
Headley, born Daood Gilani, an American citizen of Pakistani origin told a Chicago court on Friday that he played a "key" role in the planning and execution of the horrific 26/11 Mumbai terror attack. What the changed plea does is save Headley from a near certain death sentence and any possibility of extradition to India, where he committed his worst crimes.
However, according to sources in the government, what the plea of 'guilty' on all 12 counts for which Headley is charged by the US Justice Department also does is to ensure that India gets access to him and his testimony.
Headley also pleaded guilty to planning an attack on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons poking fun at Prophet Mohammad. While several security analysts disagree, informed sources in the Indian government said the plea bargain would ensure Headley's cooperation, and help India get details of the serving Pakistan army handlers of the 26/11 attackers.
India will be allowed to interrogate Headley, who is key to a "huge amount of information" that will help fill the missing pieces in India's case and unravel other aspects of the conspiracy. There is no sense of disappointment in the Indian government, the sources said, because Headley will now have to depose and India will, as part of the plea bargain, get access to the man.
"Access will give us an opportunity to get more information," Home Minister P Chidambaram said today, denying that the plea bargain was a "setback".
"Headley has agreed to testify and there is a good chance he will testify in proceedings when Indian authorities get to examine him either in court or through video-conferencing or through a Letter Rogatory (a formal communication to request testimony of a witness living in a foreign land). We have not given up our plea for extradition," Chidambaram clarified, although chances for such an eventuality are bleak, particularly given that India has not even formally charged Headley yet.
"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 said.
Chidambaram was briefed about the changed plea and its implications when Dennis Blair, Director of the US National Investigation Agency, visited him on Thursday. Timothy Roemer, US Ambassador to India, accompanied Blair.
What the changed plea also does is definitively nail Pakistan's involvement in the 26/11 carnage in which over 170 people, including six Americans, died. According to sources, the plea bargain is a warning to Pakistan, because India will gain access to hitherto unrevealed details, as well as a gesture to them, indicating to Islamabad that Washington is "on board" with their concerns.
Pakistan has been holding back and denying the US access to Mullah Baradar, one of the top leaders of the Taliban's Quetta Shura. According to the sources, what the plea bargain also proves is that Headley was the US' own agent, and could not be left to hang.
According to reports, prosecutors in the Chicago court said that the 49-year-old son of a Pakistani father and American mother, whose real name was Daood Gilani, was instructed by three Lashkar members to go to India for surveillance that helped the 10 Pakistani terrorists who sneaked into Mumbai in November 2008 to go on a killing spree.
The 36-page plea agreement enlists the conditions for cooperation. It requires Headley to "fully and truthfully cooperate in any manner in which he is called upon to cooperate" by a representative of the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois.
Headley's lawyer John Theis said Headley "has agreed to make himself available for interrogation by Indian enforcement authorities or any authorised Indian authority." Both countries will still have to figure out how and when he can be questioned and whether the Indian investigators will be allowed direct access.
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