David Headley becomes approver

During his deposition before a special court via videoconferencing from the US, David Coleman Headley named Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed as mastermind of 26/11 attack. Ajmal Kassab, the only survivor of the attackers, was tortured and coerced into naming Hafiz Saeed by the police as mastermind of 26/11 attacks, but he had retracted from his statement in the court. Headley named Major Ali and Major Iqbal of the ISI and Lashkar commander Sajid Mir as his contacts in Pakistan. Headley, who was convicted in the U.S. for his role in the Mumbai attacks, gave his statement before special judge G.A. Sanap. Testifying as a prosecution witness from an undisclosed location in the U.S., he confined himself to the information he divulged following his plea bargain agreement with the American government in 2010. In this backdrop, his deposition before the Indian court appears to be a part of propaganda against Pakistan.
In December 2015, David Coleman Headley was granted pardon by a Mumbai special court and made an approver and a witness in the case against plotter Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal. Headley was pardoned on the condition that he made full disclosure of the criminal conspiracy behind the attacks as well as his role and those of others in it. He was given this incentive to make him say what India wanted to listen His statement has now been recorded by a special court on February 9, 2016. Four years ago, Headley had made many startling revelations when he was interrogated in the US by a team of sleuths from India’s National Investigation Agency.
In March, 2009, the Mumbai Crime Branch had filed a charge-sheet comprising thousands of pages with regard to terrorists’ attack of 26th November 2008 in a Mumbai court.
Mumbai’s Joint Commissioner of Police Rakesh Maria had told newsmen that investigations had not thrown up anything that could speak about the involvement of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). “It is an operation carried out by the LeT and we have not yet come across and evidence of ISI’s involvement,” he added. From November 2008 to March 2009, India could not find any connection between the terrorists and Pakistan, which vindicated Pakistan’s position that Pakistan as a state was not involved. At least once Secretary External Affairs Shiv Shankar Menon had said: “We have no evidence of ISI’s involvement in Mumbai mayhem”. One could draw the logical conclusion that all propaganda blitz against Pakistan had malicious intent on the part of Indian leadership. There were many holes in the Indians’ version as they kept mum on the issue of local connection with the external perpetrators of Mumbai mayhem.
There is a perception that it was a stage-managed act by India to stall the composite dialogue. It was reported in the Indian press that a serving Indian Military Intelligence colonel was involved in the terrorist strike on Samjhota Express, in which at least 69 Pakistani passengers were killed and many more wounded. There were quite a few questions like the mysterious killing of Hemant Karkare, Mumbai’s anti-terrorist squad chief and two of his senior team members on the very first night of the terrorist attack. He was the man who had busted an Indian terrorist network comprising Hindu fanatics and military officers, both serving and retired. Anyhow, David Coleman Headley’s deposition to the court through video link made headlines in Indian print and electronic media. It has to be mentioned that David Coleman Headley being a dubious character, son of divided family, double or triple agent, a drug trafficker, is not trustworthy.
Times of India has pointed out 10 things that Headley, now serving a 35-year prison sentence in the US, told the National Investigation Agency in the US vis-a-vis. Hafiz Mohammed Saeed had “full knowledge” of the Mumbai attacks, which were launched only after his approval. The Mumbai attacks were possible only because of the “complete support of the ISI”. He stated that the money used by him for conducting surveillance activities in Mumbai was provided by one “Major Iqbal” of the ISI. It has to be mentioned that at one place he said that he was not on the pay role of the ISI; thus he contradicted his own statement. This goes to prove that he is not telling the truth. Headley had told the America’s National Investigation Agency that he believed local Indian boys were part of the LeT’s Karachi set-up.
In the critical analysis captioned ‘The Murky World of David Headley’ carried by Axis of Logic in November 2010, the author Shahid R. Siddiqi wrote: “David Coleman Headley initially pled not guilty before U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber in Chicago but later pled guilty in a plea bargain with the U.S…After his arrest in Germany in 1988 for smuggling drugs to the US, Headley landed with US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for which he worked as paid informant in exchange for a lighter sentence.” In his article in ProPublica, a newsroom of investigative journalism, Sebastian Rotella wrote that after 9/11 Headley told associates that he planned to train with LeT as part of a secret mission for the U.S. government. Within two months Headley was training with LeT, which had been designated a terrorist organization by the US and Pakistan.