Headley linking ISI to 26/11: Pak says he can't be trusted

ISLAMABAD: Days after Pakistani-American LeT operative David Headley implicated ISI in the Mumbai attacks during his testimony in a US court, Interior Minister Rehman Malik has described him as a convict who has "no credibility and cannot be trusted."

In an apparent effort to play down Headley's testimony that detailed the alleged links of ISI officials to the 2008 attacks in India's financial hub, Malik questioned whether Headley could corroborate his claims about Pakistan's spy agency.

"Headley's father was a Pakistani from a good family. Headley himself is a criminal and a convict... This man has no credibility and cannot be trusted," Malik told Newsweek magazine in an interview.

Asked if he was concerned about Headley's testimony at the US trial of Tahawwur Rana, another key suspect in the Mumbai attacks, and its repercussions for Pakistan, Malik said if Headley "has credible evidence that can stand in a court of law to support his claim that he was being aided by the ISI, he should present it."

"He's made videos of the places he was casing in Mumbai. Does he have any recordings that corroborate his claims against the so-called ISI major?" Malik said.

Testifying as a prosecution witness at Rana's trial in a federal court in Chicago, 50-year-old Headley said he worked with ISI officers, including one Major Iqbal, on planning and facilitating the Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.

He also told the court that the ISI coordinated activities by LeT and other militant groups.