The National Investigation Agency that travelled to the United States from New Delhi seeking access to Mumbai terror attacks suspect David Coleman Headley was provided with such access between June 3 and June 10 and is now returning to India, it was confirmed by sources on both the U.S. and Indian sides on Friday. In a statement by the Department of Justice, U.S. authorities said “Indian law enforcement officials were provided direct access to interview David Coleman Headley.”
The DoJ said that Headley and his counsel, John Theis, had agreed to the meetings with Indian officials, and Headley “answered Indian investigators’ questions over the course of seven days of interviews.” It further noted that there had been “no restrictions on the questions posed by Indian investigators [yet] to protect the confidentiality of the investigations being conducted by both India and the United States, both countries have agreed not to disclose the contents of the interviews.”‘Useful visit’
The Indian embassy in Washington also confirmed that access had been provided, quoting Indian Ambassador Meera Shankar who said that following discussions with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, a team from the National Investigation Agency of India (NIA) visited the U.S. to question Mr. Headley.
She noted that these visits by the NIA team took place “over several days, beginning from June 3, 2010, and the team is now returning to India on the conclusion of a useful visit.”
Ms. Shankar said India attached importance to this in “investigating the full dimension of this heinous act of terrorist violence [and] the support and cooperation extended by the U.S. authorities is appreciated and is in keeping with the commitment of the two countries to strengthen their cooperation in meeting the challenge of terrorism."
In a parallel statement U.S. Ambassador to India Timothy Roemer also confirmed from Washington that “a team of Government of India investigators had been granted direct access to David Headley, and had conducted a series of interviews with him related to terrorist activities in India.” He said that the team had arrived in the U.S. on May 31, and their interviews with Headley began on June 3.
Mr. Roemer praised the cooperation between the Indian team and their American counterparts throughout the process, noting in particular the “depth and breadth of our partnership in this key area, including a Counter-terrorism Cooperation Initiative, joint U.S.-India work on mega-city policing, forensic lab training, intelligence sharing, sharing best practices, and cooperation on launching a National Counter-Terrorism Centre.”
He added, “As I have mentioned previously, the U.S. Government worked continuously at the highest levels to ensure that this access occurred and was constructive in advancing our already unprecedented cooperation and information sharing on counter-terrorism issues.” He was proud to confirm that these efforts were successful, he said.
Reiterating President Obama’s emphasis on counter-terrorism during the recently-concluded U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue, he said, India and the U.S. were cooperating more closely than ever before against transnational threats and working to prevent terrorism that threatened both countries and the world at large.
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