Chicago: India is likely to get access to 26/11 suspect David Headley on Friday. The National Investigating Agency (NIA) team is in Chicago to interrogate him.
The team comprises officers of the NIA and a law officer. This will be for the first time that 49-year-old Pakistani-American Headley will be facing direct questions from Indian investigators over his involvement in Mumbai attacks in November 2008 and other attacks in public places including Pune blast in February this year when 17 people died at the city's German Bakery.
Sources in India said the four-member team has prepared questions about his stay in the country especially during March 2009, his last visit to India.
The travel details of Headley are being sought mainly as investigators believe that this visit may have been to finalise the synchronised terror strikes on Jewish houses located in five cities, the sources said.
Obama had assured India in April that Indian interrogators would get access to him. Speaking at the Plenary Session of the Indo-US strategic dialogue in Washington on Thursday, External Affairs Minister SM Krishna too said that access to Headley is the next logical step.
In a plea bargain deal worked out with the US government earlier this year, Headley had accepted that he did indeed work closely with the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) to carry out the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. In return for this guilty plea Headley will not face any trial, he will not face a death penalty and he will not be extradited to India.
In a Chicago court, Headley, who was arrested by the FBI in September, pleaded guilty to all 12 charges of terror against him. These include conspiring to attack public places in India, and working on behalf of the LeT. He also accepted that he made several trips to India to survey the places that would be targeted during 26/11 and that he photographed these places for Pakistani handlers.
Headley's 36-page plea agreement states that "defendant agrees that, when directed by the US attorney's office, he will fully and truthfully testify in any foreign judicial proceedings held in the US by way of deposition, video conferencing or letters rogratory. Defendant agrees to the postponement of his sentencing until after the conclusion of his interrogation."