PM likely to take up Headley's custody with Barack Obama

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to raise India's demand for temporary custody of Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, an accused in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, during his meeting with US President Barack Obama in Washington DC on September 27.

The issue figures among the points finalised ahead of the prime minister's visit by the National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon in a meeting last week, a senior official told ET. "It was agreed that India will press for the temporary custody of David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana," a communique sent to the Union home secretary Anil Goswami last week said, informing him that the key demand of the home ministry would be part of the PM's agenda during his visit.

The decision to raise the matter at the highest level has been taken to send across the message that India is serious about obtaining Headley's custody, bringing him to India for interrogation and recording his statement before a magistrate in the case filed by the National Investigation Agency.

"There is hardly any hope that India will ever be able to lay its hands on the actual masterminds like Hafiz Saeed or Laskar-e-Taiba operations chief Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi living in Pakistan. The best chance is to convince the US to hand over Headley for some months to India so that the government can get his legally-admissible statement and expose Pakistan for 26/11," said the official, who did not wish to be named.

India has got feelers that the head of the US Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano and the US Attorney General, Eric H Holder, "have an open mind" towards the Indian proposal. "But the FBI is against it. They have told us that the arrangement will be dependent on Headley's consent," the official added.

ET had first reported on May 29 that Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde had made the demand for Headley's temporary custody during the Homeland Security Dialogue in Washington on May 20-22.

India sought temporary custody after it became clear that Headley's extradition was next to impossible since his plea bargain with the US authorities says he would not be extradited to any country and he has already been sentenced to a 35-year-sentence by a Chicago court in January.