India plans to question terror suspect held in US

Mar 20, 2010, 10:16 GMT

New Delhi - India will be able to question a US terrorism suspect for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Home Minister P Chidambaram said Saturday.

US Attorney General Eric Holder called Chidambaram Friday to clarify various aspects of a plea agreement with suspect David Coleman Headley, the home minister said in a statement.

Headley, accused of planning the Mumbai attack with the Pakistan-based militant organization the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), pleaded guilty to several charges in a Chicago court Thursday. The plea agreement ensures that he will not be given the death sentence or extradited to a foreign country.

Headley is also accused of plotting an attack on a Norwegian newspaper which published a cartoon that sparked protests by Muslims.

'It is my understanding that India would be able to obtain access to David Coleman Headley to question him in a properly constituted judicial proceeding,' Chidambaram said.

He said the proceeding could be in the pre-trial stage or during an inquiry or trial.

Chidambaram said India's National Investigation Agency, which had filed a case against Headley and accomplice Tahawwur Hussain Rana, was told to prepare documents for a judicial proceeding in which Indian authorities could require Headley to testify.

The minister said Headley implicated certain people in Pakistan.

'He has admitted to attending training camps organised by the LET,' Chidambaram said. 'And meeting in Pakistan with various co-conspirators and being privy to the (Mumbai) attacks and the dispatch of a team of attackers by sea.

'The plea agreement should spur Pakistan to take action against all the conspirators and bring them to justice. Nothing short of that will be acceptable to India or will satisfy world opinion,' he added.

India has accused the Pakistani extremists of masterminding the terrorist attack on its financial capital that killed 166 people.

According to intelligence agencies, the 10 gunmen who attacked multiple sites in Mumbai including a railway station and luxury hotels, reached the city by sea from Pakistan.

Nine of the gunmen were killed by security forces. The lone survivor, Ajmal Amir Kasab, is being tried in Mumbai.