India: 35-year term not enough for Mumbai plotter

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January 26, 2013

India is disappointed with the 35-year sentence given to David Headley for the 2008 Mumbai attack, saying he deserved more prison time for terrorism that killed 166 people. Headley was born in the U.S. to a Pakistani father and an American mother and changed his changed his birth name from Daood Gilani.

January 26, 2013

India is disappointed with the 35-year sentence given to David Headley for the 2008 Mumbai attack, saying he deserved more prison time for terrorism that killed 166 people. Headley was born in the U.S. to a Pakistani father and an American mother and changed his changed his birth name from Daood Gilani.

In this courtroom sketch, David Coleman Headley, 52, left, appears before U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber at federal court in Chicago, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013, as Leinenweber imposes a sentence of 35 years in prison for the key role Headley played in a 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai that has been called India's 9/11.

 India expressed disappointment Friday with the 35-year sentence given to an American who admitted his role in the 2008 Mumbai attack, saying he deserved more prison time for the terrorism that killed 166 people in the country's financial capital.

David Headley was sentenced Thursday in a U.S. federal court in Chicago. External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said he would have possibly received a "more serious and severe" sentence had he been tried in India.

"The 35-year sentence is a beginning. We will continue our efforts to ensure that he is extradited and brought to India for trial," Khurshid told reporters.

Headley, 52, was born in the U.S. to a Pakistani father and an American mother and changed his changed his birth name from Daood Gilani. He admitted that he helped plan the attack and videotaped targets that were later attacked.

In the three-day rampage, 10 gunmen from a Pakistani-based militant group fanned out across Mumbai, attacking a crowded train station, a landmark hotel and a Jewish center, among other targets.

Headley was arrested in the U.S. in 2009 and entered into a plea bargain with U.S. investigators under which he provided information about terror networks.


Courtesy: AP