Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Saturday said that India will be able to obtain access to United States terror accused David Headley for questioning in a properly constituted judicial proceeding in which he is obliged to cooperate fully.
Pakistan spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence was planning recruitment of retired Indian military personnel to penetrate into the system and then use them for its anti-India activities, according to Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Headley.
The United States has sought a jail term of 30 to 35 years for American born Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorist David Headley for his role in Mumbai attack and other terror activities.
American-born Lashker-e-Tayiba operative David Headley, accused of plotting the Mumbai terror attack in 2008, had 'hatred' towards India and warned that he would stop helping the probe if his admission of guilt was linked to cooperation with New Delhi.
Indian agencies are rejoicing over statements made by 26/11 accused David Headley, but they also know that the task ahead, especially for the interrogators, is not an easy one.
The presence of David Headley in Mumbai has thrown up many questions before investigators busy trying to find out whether disappeared cadres of the banned Student Islamic Movement of India and the Indian Mujahideen had used his immigration service.
US terror suspect David Headley had conducted a detailed reccee of Nariman House before the Mumbai carnage and even entered the targeted Jewish Centre posing as a Jew, official sources said on Thursday. The new detail of Headley's movement in this western metropolis prior to the 26/11 attack came on the back of evidence that the US national had also visited and stayed at Taj and Oberoi here--the two luxury hotels which was attacked.
The United States has ruled out any extradition for the American born Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorist David Headley, in lieu of providing critical information to the United States agencies about various other terror outfits.
Well briefed on India's angst over the ambiguity on the access to Lashkar operative and 26/11 conspirator David Coleman Headley and also the perceived US indifference to India's role in Afghanistan, US President Barack Obama has assured Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that he was "fully supportive" of India's request for access to Headley and "fully appreciated" and "recognized the enormous sacrifices" India has made in helping "stabilize" Afghanistan.
Pakistani-American terrorist David Headley can be interrogated by Indian investigators in the United States after he confessed to plotting Mumbai attacks, even as India's efforts to extradite him hit a roadblock.
Ejaz Naqvi, counsel for Sabahuddin, told rediff.com that he would be filing a petition before the Supreme Court to make Headley a party to the proceedings before the Bombay high court, which is hearing a set of three appeals in connection with the 26/11 case.
Home Secretary G K Pillai said if Headley gets severe punishment and comes out of the judicial process, it would be easier for India to get access to the Pakistan-born American national in jail. "If he is given a light sentence, it would not only be disappointing but we will be registering a very strong protest with the US," Pillai told NDTV hours ahead of the hearing against Headley in Chicago.
The Intelligence Bureau and Research and Analysis Wing are downplaying their team's failure to meet David Headley, the Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative currently in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's custody.
American terror suspect David Headley was scheduled to visit India again in November last year, apparently to finalise the next target for terror outfit Lashker-e-Tayiba and set up a base in Delhi. Sources privy to the investigations said that Headley, 49, had told his friends in India that he was coming to the country in November.
Some Indians living in Karachi were willing to work with the Lashkar-e-Tayiba to carry out terror attacks in India, David Headley has said, apparently referring to underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, who is based in the port city of Pakistan.
Justifying a controversial deal with Mumbai terror attacks accused David Headley that spared him from the death penalty and extradition to India, a top United States attorney on Friday said that not making the pact would have been a "terrible mistake".
Investigators have found "footprints" of US terror suspect David Headley in the Pune blast and hope to get a breakthrough "very soon" following intensive questioning of some people, mostly locals. Highly placed sources said on Wednesday that the plan of exploding the high-intensity bomb at the German Bakery was executed by some local terror modules with help from outside Maharashtra.
Terrorist David Headley was ready to double cross his comrades-in-arms after his 2009 arrest and had prepared to setup dreaded Al Qaeda commander Ilyas Kashmiri to be targeted in a United States drone strike.
Mumbai attack co-accused David Headley on Thursday told a US court that a Pakistani Navy man was present during discussions with his ISI handler Major Iqbal on landing sites and arrival of Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorists by sea.
In revelations that clearly show Inter Services Intelligence's role in the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistani-American terrorist David Headley has told his interrogators that the Pakistani intelligence agency had paid Rs 25 lakh to Lashkar-e-Tayiba to purchase a boat, which terrorists used to travel from Karachi.
According to sources privy to the investigations, the 49-year-old American national, arrested from Chicago airport and currently in FBI custody, spent considerable time at the Golf course and the National Investigation Agency is now recording the statement of witnesses.
On the instructions of Inter-Services Intelligence, David Headley masqueraded as a tourist interested in angling, taking fishing boats into the waters off Mumbai to identify a suitable landing site for Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorists, who months later created mayhem in India's financial capital.
'India simply wasn't prepared for the fact that a natural-born American could be organising a major terror plot in their country. And they didn't look for people like him.' 'Headley is one of the most complex and interesting terrorists of the last many years.'
American terror suspect David Headley stayed at the Osho Ashram in Pune twice during his visits to the city in 2008-09 but did not register himself as a foreign national with the police, a top official said on Tuesday.
Investigations showed that during his first visit to Mumbai in the year 2007, he stayed at the Taj Mahal hotel for nearly 10 days. As per investigations, Headley checked into room number 1809 in the Taj Mahal hotel and stayed there between April 20 and 30 2007. The IB says that this information is being verified and would prove crucial to the 26/11 probe.
The Union home ministry believes the newly-formed National Investigation Agency will have to reinvestigate the 26/11 case if the David Headley-Tahawwur Rana probe produces unexpected links with the Mumbai terror attacks. This will be a serious matter and hit the Mumbai police's credibility.
A Mumbai court on Thursday pardoned Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Headley, who had surveyed targets for the 26/11 attacks, and made him an approver in the case, a move that may unravel the conspiracy behind the brazen terror assault.
India will send a letter to the United States by the end of this week seeking direct access to David Headley, who pleaded guilty to 12 terror charges of conspiracy involving bombing public places in India and is currently in American custody.
India has insisted that US must provide a direct access to its investigators to interrogate Pakistani-American David Headley, who has confessed to plotting the Mumbai terror attacks.
Speak about terrorism being made into a political tool, and there cannot be a better case than the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case. In his interrogation, 26/11 convict David Headley told the National Investigation Agency that Ishrat was a fidayeen, in 2010. Despite this fact, the home ministry allegedly asked the NIA to not include this angle in the Headley probe. Vicky Nanjappa finds out why.
In a new twist to the Headley case, it now turns out that the US national arrested for plotting terror strikes in India was in touch with another American who has been living in India on a tourist visa for nine years and running a massage parlour.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has said that there was no confusion over the issue of Indian investigators getting direct access to Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley or not.
"Get lost" was what the US officials in Islamabad told the young Moroccan wife of 26/11 accused David Headley when she informed them that her husband was planning a terror attack in India with the help of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba.
Over a year after the National Investigation Agency got access to 26/11 conspirator David Headley, a metropolitan court has issued letters rogatory to a US court requesting it to enable the Mumbai police to question him and his alleged accomplice Tahawwur Rana in the Mumbai attack case.
Pakistan military on Wednesday dismissed as 'fabricated' reports that Pakistani-American David Headley, who confessed to plotting Mumbai attacks, had named three army and Inter Services Intelligence officials for their involvement in the 26/11 strikes, claiming that it was an attempt to malign security agencies.
Indications that US terror suspect David Headley could have been a "double agent" for American agencies and Pakistan-based outfits have become clearer for Indian investigators with mounting evidence coming there way.
Terming the sentencing of Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorist David Headley as a "positive example" of Indo-US counterterrorism cooperation, the United States defended the verdict, saying justice has been served as promised.
In the wake of the Pune blast, the Gujarat police is keeping a close watch over all the places in the state which US terror suspect David Headley's accomplice had visited in November 2008.
A multi-agency team has gone to the US and all paperwork and legal issues are being completed with US authorities to bring him to India, they said.
The National Investigating Agency has in its possession David Headley's 119-page interrogation report and sources say that it's clear that he has not wavered from what he had said last year. Vicky Nanjappa reports.