26/11 attacks: Headley confesses Pak role, to depose before court tomorrow
Mumbai: Ahead of his disposition before a special Mumbai court on Monday with regards to the 26/11 terror strike, the main accused in the case, David Coleman Headley, has reportedly confessed Pakistan army’s role in the attack.
According to reports, Headley, revealed to the NIA during an interrogation that the terror strike was conducted with the help of Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Hafiz Saeed.
Adding that attacks were executed with the help of ISI, who provided the finance for recce, Headley said that residence of the Vice President, India Gate and CBI office in New Delhi were other potential terror targets that he had surveyed.
Revealing that he was handled by Pakistan ISI's Major Iqbal and Sameer Ali, he also said that LeT's Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi's handler was ISI Brigadier Rivaz.
Headley is set to depose before a special Mumbai court on Monday and reveal the sequence of events and planning behind the 26/11 terror attacks.
“It is for the first time in the Indian legal history, one foreign terrorist would give his evidence through video link and his evidence will be recorded. And I feel his evidence is most useful because that may unfold many things behind the terror attack of 26 November,” senior public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said.
Highlighting the importance of the evidences that are expected to be brought to fore by Headley, Nikam said, “The evidence of David Headley is important for two reasons. One of the Indian terrorists Abu Jindal who was in Pakistan and against whom the trial is pending. So, David Headley may give the broader aspect of the criminal conspiracy. The second aspect of the evidence of David Headley would be that why the conspiracy was hatched, who were the persons behind the criminal conspiracy and how it progressed with ultimately a huge death toll of 160 persons.”
“We expect that David Headley would give his revelation. Because on oath he is going to give the revelation as he has made a commitment before the American court,” he added.
Headley (55) was pardoned on December 10 and made an approver by additional sessions judge G A Sanap who presides over special cases related to terrorism, including those under the now repealed TADA.
Headley’s maps and videos helped ten Pakistani fidayeens land by sea on Mumbai’s shores and launch one of the audacious attacks on the financial capital, killing more than 166 people and injuring 300.
Between November 26 and 29, 2008, terrorists rampaged through two five-star hotels Oberoi and Taj Mahal Palace, Jewish outreach centre at Nariman House, Cafe Leopold, all in Colaba, besides Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and Cama and Albless Hospital.
While nine terrorists were killed during the response operations, a lone gunman Ajmal Kasab was caught alive, tried and hanged at Pune’s Yerawada jail on November 21, 2012.
The FBI had arrested Headley in October 2009 at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago while on his way to Pakistan. US district judge Harry Leinenweber of the United States district court for the Northern District of Illinois, Chicago, sentenced him to 35 years in prison for his role in Mumbai attacks on January 24, 2013.
