Posted on 03/18/2010 3:55:10 AM PDT by James C. Bennett
The FBI has already reached a plea bargain with him in order to avoid any formal production of evidence against him in the court, which might result in details regarding his links with the US intelligence coming out. The FBI would not extradite him to India and would not allow the Indian agencies to have access to him in order to prevent the Indian agencies from questioning him about his links with the US intelligence on the one side and with the Pakistani intelligence on the other.
Ever since the case of David Coleman Headley broke out in October 2009, I have been repeatedly pointing out the following in my articles and TV interviews: Headley was a quadruple agent, who was working for the USA's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Lashkar-e-Tayiba (LET).
What I have been writing and saying for the last five months has proved correct. The media reported on the morning of March 18, 2010, that Headley was going to plead guilty to some charges as part of a plea bargain process entered into by him with the FBI.
What does it mean? Firstly, there will be no formal introduction of the evidence against him and no cross-examination.
Secondly, the relatives of the 166 innocent persons killed in the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist strikes cannot seek the court's permission to be represented by a lawyer to question him on the details of his involvement in the 26/11 terrorist strikes.
Thirdly, the details of his links with the US intelligence community will be covered up.
Fourthly, the two Pakistani nationals living in Pakistan -- Ilyas Kashmiri of the Al Qaeda's 313 Brigade, who had threatened terrorist strikes in India during major sports events of this year, and Major (retd) Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed alias Pasha of the Pakistan Army, who have been cited as co-accused in the FBI case against Headley because of their role as his handling officers, will escape prosecution.
Unless one is naive beyond redemption, it was clear from the beginning that the Obama Administration and its FBI were trying frantically to prevent the truth regarding Headley from coming out.
I wrote on December 12, 2009: 'Senior officials of the White House and the FBI have been taking close and unusual interest in the investigation and prosecution. The director of the FBI himself was reported to have visited Chicago before Headley was produced before the court. Many in India have analysed this as indicative of the close interest taken by President Obama in counter-terrorism co-operation with India. A more plausible explanation is that this is indicative of the concerns in the White House and the FBI that if the prosecution is not properly handled, the case could result in a bombshell if it emerges that one of the active conspirators of 26/11 was an agent of a US agency. This could lead to suits for heavy damages against the US government from the relatives of the Americans, Israelis and other foreigners killed.'
Headley will be protected. The FBI will be protected. The US administration will be protected. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) will be protected. The Pakistani government and its army will be protected. Only we poor Indians will remain unprotected because the government of India headed by Dr Manmohan Singh cannot protect us.
What naivete, Mr Prime Minister! What naivete!
The writer is the Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.
What a character.
Triple dipping in US alphabet agencies? And then managing to get into the Muslim terrorist group too? No wonder the US wants to keep it hush hush. Preventive de-spilling of beans.
It gets a lot more interesting:
Headley may have tipped off US about 26/11
NEW DELHI: Indian agencies suspect that eagerness of American agencies to protect its mole — David Coleman Headley, who in all probability was a CIA agent who had successfully infiltrated LeT and managed to tip off the US of an impending sea-borne LeT attack on Mumbai well ahead of 26/11 — may have made them reticent about sharing specific details of the 26/11 plot with India despite being in the know.
The US — which continued to share intelligence with India regarding LeT’s plans to target National Defence College and other targets here, all sourced from Headley, until September this year — may have decided to arrest him only to pre-empt LeT’s plans to target the office of Danish publication Jyllands Posten in Copenhagen, Denmark.
It has now become amply clear that Headley was the source of information behind US agencies’ alert to India in September 2008, warning of a LeT attack on Mumbai through the sea route. Investigations into the 26/11 conspiracy have confirmed that the LeT operation was originally planned for September, but had to be aborted twice due to logistical glitches. The 10 gunmen finally set sail from Karachi on November 22, 2008.
Agencies here suspect that Headley — working as a double agent for the CIA as well as the LeT though his loyalties had lately shifted more towards the latter — may have tipped off the US about the exact Mumbai targets. However, the Americans, in their bid to protect the source of their information, may have chosen to merely share selective details of the 26/11 plot, naming only the Taj Mahal hotel and CST among the potential targets and identifying the sea as their chosen infiltration route.
Indian agencies did follow up the US alert, beefing up security at the Taj Mahal Hotel in September, but when no terror attack was attempted for more than two months after, the alert was withdrawn around November 10, 2008. Kasab and nine terror accomplices struck exactly a fortnight later, landing in Mumbai through the very route mentioned in the US alert and striking at Taj, CST, Nariman House, Oberoi-Trident and Leopold Cafe.
As many as 166 persons, including six American citizens, were butchered in the mayhem that unfolded over the next three days.
Indian agencies’ fears that Headley was a double agent working for the CIA have valid grounds. Firstly, the fact that Headley could travel freely to Pakistan despite his conviction by the US courts in a drugs-related offence, that too in the wake of the strict immigration checks in the wake of 9/11, leads one to think whether his travels were facilitated by the CIA and DEA for which he worked as a mole.
Even after the 26/11 attacks happened and his involvement in the plot became amply clear to US agencies, they allowed him to travel to India and even Pakistan in March 2009. Indian agencies are wondering why the US remained silent on Headley’s March 2009 trip to Delhi, Pune, Pushkar, Goa and Mumbai, and failed to alert them of his presence here, when it could have led to his arrest here.
The assessment here is that US may have never wanted India to lay hands on Headley for fear of ‘exposing’ his role as a CIA agent here. This is why FBI had been playing truant in giving access to NIA to question Headley. FBI claims that Headley does not want to be interrogated by Indians though the reality could be that the Americans are not interested in uncovering their source of crucial information on LeT’s terror designs.
The security establishment, incidentally, was not alone in suspecting Headley to be a double agent for CIA from day one. Rahul Bhatt, son of film director Mahesh Bhatt, who Headley had befriended during his stay in Mumbai, is also believed to have told NIA that he always thought Headley to be a CIA agent, given his frequent references to the wars fought by Americans as well as Army and military books.
All eyes are now on the trial of Headley going on in a Chicago court. The agencies are awaiting his conviction — in case he does resort to plea bargaining, a possibility that the Indians clearly see, and gets off with a lighter sentence, it will be the final confirmation of his association with the CIA as a trusted and much-valued mole. And in such an event, Indians will be protesting strongly with the US for showing leniency towards a dreaded terror operative who killed six American citizens among others.
Also, the lighter sentence, that could range anything between two and five years, would give the Indian agencies a chance to seek his extradition to stand trial in the terror case pending against him here.
For now, NIA and Mumbai police plan to file a supplementary chargesheet naming Headley and Tahawwur Rana as accused in the 26/11 case. It will on the basis of the charge sheet that India will get a warrant issued against the terror duo, followed by a letters rogatory to the US authorities.
Thanks for posting. Very interesting. Belated WELCOME ABOARD!
Thank you!
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