New Delhi: India asked Pakistan to prosecute Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley, and seek his testimony as a witness, in the 2008 Mumbai attacks case. The government conveyed this to Islamabad last week, while reiterating that India is open to hosting a Pakistani judicial commission to examine witnesses in Mumbai or to question them through a teleconference.
The 26/11 plotter, who pleaded guilty, is serving a 35-year sentence in the US for planning terror attacks in Denmark and India. India believes his deposition before Pakistani authorities, exposing Pakistan's ISI links with the perpetrators, will set to rest any doubt about the role of Pakistani state actors in the attacks that left 166, including six Americans, dead.
Headley has confessed before both US and Indian agencies that he acted at the behest of ISI and that the terror group responsible for the attack, LeT, was acting under the same spy agency's umbrella. That he turned approver and pleaded guilty, while leading to his conviction by a US court, also meant that under US laws, he can no longer be extradited to India, or to Pakistan in the unlikely event of Islamabad acting on India's advice and seeking his prosecution.
Not being extradited to India, Pakistan or Denmark was one of the conditions on which the rogue US intelligence agent had turned approver. In his plea bargain, Headley had agreed that when directed by the US attorney’s office, he would "fully and truthfully" testify in any foreign judicial proceedings held in the United States by way of deposition, video-conferencing or letters rogatory. This opens the door for Pakistan to implead Headley.
