Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: Indian government will be "satisfied" if Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley, who pleaded guilty in a US court to his involvement in the Mumbai attacks, is awarded a life sentence, Home Secretary G K Pillai said Friday.
"The US Attorney General has advised a sentence of life imprisonment. If he gets a sentence of life imprisonment, I don't think government of India will be unsatisfied," he
said here.
He said other details of his accessibility for questioning by India, interrogation or about giving testimony have to be worked out in the coming weeks.
Some highly placed government sources also claimed today that Pakistani American terror suspect David Headley’s successful plea bargain has not disappointed the Indian government since it sees the LeT operative’s admission to guilt as a significant development.
Although the government has clearly refused to interfere in the US federal laws, it is still hopeful that this development will not affect the Indo-US ties and the Indian investigators will get access to interrogate Headley for obtaining vital clues regarding deadly terror attacks, report stated.
Indian investigative agencies are now studying the US laws closely in order to find out the modalities of the plea bargain after the US court spared Headley of a capital punishment and extradition to other countries to face trial.
Headley, who has been accused of plotting the 26/11 Mumbai attacks at the behest of Lashkar-e-Toiba and conspiring to target a Danish newspaper, pleaded guilty to all terror charges before a US court in Chicago on Thursday.
India investigators are now keeping all hopes alive that they will still get a chance to question Headley in the US custody. Under the plea agreement, Headley can now testify and India can now question Headley.
Under the plea bargain struck with the US government, there are three ways in which Indian investigating agencies can get access to Headley. Headley can testify through video conferencing or through submitting answers to India's list of queries. India can also make arrangements to interview him in the US.
Headley's cooperation has reportedly yielded good results for the US in terms of intelligence inputs and information and this is probably the reason why it has refused to extradite Headley to India for terror interrogation.
However, this has also given credence to suspicion that Headley was a CIA double agent.
First Published: Friday, March 19, 2010, 14:04