Home Minister P. Chidambaram Friday said Pakistani American terror suspect David Coleman Headley's confession that he planned the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack and his deal with US prosecutors was “not a setback to India”.
New Delhi, he said, would “wait and see” and continue its case to extradite or get access to him.
“It is not a setback. We have not yet charged Headley. We will charge Headley at an appropriate time,” Chidambaram told reporters here.
“We will continue with our extradition plea,” he said after a cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Headley, a Pakistani born US national, has entered a deal with prosecutors in a Chicago court that he won't be sentenced to death or extradited to India, Pakistan or Denmark after pleading guilty to terror charges.
“There is a good chance that he will testify in judicial proceedings where Indian (investigators) will have a right to question him,” the home minister said.
Headley Thursday pleaded guilty to a dozen federal terrorism charges in a Chicago court and admitted his role in planning the 2008 Mumbai terror attack.
Headley, 49, also admitted that he attended training camps in Pakistan operated by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) on five separate occasions between 2002 and 2005.