Chicago, March 18: Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley, a Lashkar-e-Toiba operative charged with conspiracy in the Mumbai terror strike, will on Thursday plead guilty before a US court, five months after he was arrested by the FBI.
Headley is expected to change his plea to ‘guilty’ in a Chicago court in a bid to escape a death sentence.
The 49-year-old LeT operative is charged with conspiring in the Mumbai terror strike and planning attack on a Danish newspaper which published a cartoon on Prophet Mohammad.
Meanwhile, reports claiming that Headley may enter into a plea bargain with prosecutors in Chicago have raised concerns in the Indian security establishment, which feels that it would lend credence to suspicions that he may have been working for the Americans.
Top Indian officials, who have been watching the progress in the case at Chicago in US, are somewhat worried about reports emanating from the US that Headley would be pleading guilty in an attempt to get lighter sentence.
Headley has sought plea bargain under American laws and this has raised concerns in India. The US laws provide for agreement between federal prosecutors and individuals under criminal investigation which permit them to give the government information about crimes with some assurances that they will be protected against prosecution.
In view of this, a lighter sentence to Headley will “confirm” that he was an American agent.
The son of a Pakistani diplomat and a Philadelphia socialite, Headley had so far pleaded not guilty to the charges and has remained in federal custody at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre here since he was arrested in October 2009.
John Thesis, Headley’s lawyer has so far refused to give any details when asked whether a plea deal has been worked out for Headley, who has been “cooperating in the ongoing investigation”. If convicted, Headley faces maximum penalty of life imprisonment or death.
In the 12 count indictment, Headley, a 49 year old Chicago resident, faces six counts of conspiracy involving bombing public places in India, murdering and maiming persons in India and Denmark, providing material support to foreign terrorist plots, providing material support to Lashkar and six counts of aiding and abetting the murder of US citizens in India.
The FBI had also charged Headley’s friend from a Pakistani military school, city-businessman Tahawwur Hussain Rana with providing material support to the Mumbai attacks as well as to the terrorist organisation LeT.
Pakistani-Canadian Rana has pleaded not guilty to the charges and said that he was duped by Headley.
Rana has been denied bail by the court and is held at the Correctional centre since his October arrest. A hearing for his case has been set for March 29.
Headley was first arrested in 1998 for conspiring to smuggle heroin into the US from Pakistan. However, after his arrest he cooperated with the investigation, giving information about his involvement in drug trafficking and his Pakistani suppliers.
Due to his cooperation, he was sentenced to less than two years in prison and shortly thereafter went to Pakistan to conduct undercover surveillance operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
In 2002 and 2003, Headley allegedly attended terrorism training camps in Pakistan maintained by Lashkar and conspired with its members and others, including co-accused Rana, Ilyas Kashmiri and Abdur Rehman in planning and executing the attacks on India and a Danish newspaper.
He conducted extensive surveillance of targets in Mumbai between September 2006 and July 2008, taking photographs and making videotapes of various potential targets, including those attacked in the November 2008 attacks that killed approximately 164 people and left hundreds more injured.
After every trip to India, Headley allegedly travelled to Pakistan to share videos and photographs of the targets in India with Lashkar members.
-Agencies