LAHORE - David Coleman Headley, a rouge contractor of foreign intelligence services, had been on the watch list of security services for his shadowy activities on Pakistani soil, official sources told The Nation yesterday.
They disclosed this when asked about David Headley’s statement to an Indian court via video link last Tuesday, blaming the Pakistan’s top security agency for some unwanted actions. Headley, a US citizen sentenced on January 24, 2013, by Federal Court for 35 years over his involvement in 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Rubbishing Headley’s accusations as a “pack of lies”, official sources revealed he had been reported to the authorities concerned for the suspected activities he was carrying out to gather information on certain areas and organisations for his employers. The authorities concerned also shared the information with their counterparts of other states.
“Headley can be called Raymond Alan Davis of late 90s. He was some sort of contractor for the foreign secret services. He can also be called a double or triple agent working for more than one employer at the same time for multiple targets,” they added.
He had links with some drug dealers. In pursuance of monitoring Headley’s drug-peddling activities, the law enforcers got information which led to his arrest, but he somehow managed to evade the charges in the court, they said.
David Headley, born as Dawood Syed Gilani on 30 June, 1960, to a Pakistani origin father, Syed Salim Gilani, and Alice Serrill Headley in Washington-DC, is being painted as a terrorist from Pakistan though he lived here for very brief time during his early schooling and left for US in 1977, they added.
Headley who had earlier testified after his arrest in October 2009 at O’Hare International Airport Chicago that Pakistan’s premier security agency had nothing to do with the Mumbai attacks, definitely made fresh allegations to get some relief in his sentence or strike a new deal to get some concessions for the same purpose. Headley can go to any extent to get relief in his sentence, said the official sources.
Headley was accused of conspiring to bomb targets in Mumbai and providing material support to the attackers on December 8, 2009, by FBI.
The international media reports claimed Headley was an informant for the US Drugs Enforcement Agency. Later, the CIA also hired him to get information on certain organizations during his trips to Pakistan. However, the CIA denied the charges.
According to the reports, Headley was arrested in early 1997 with another man in a DEA sting operation when he tried to smuggle heroin in the US. He offered his services as a confidential informant to the DEA for pardon. In January 1998, he was sent on an intelligence-gathering task on the country’s heroin-smuggling networks.
On November 16, 2001, six weeks after his interrogation for connections with terror networks, the US authorities concerned made an appeal to Judge Carol Amon for extending his probation in order to continue his intelligence-gathering tasks on Pakistani soil. The DEA officials claimed the agency officially deactivated Headley as an informant on March 27, 2002, they said.
“Will it be wise or appropriate to listen to the allegations of a person who remained an informant or agent for several western agencies and quick in striking deals to reduce sentences or mange pardon,” they argued.
The Indian media which is raising hue and cry against Pakistan after the fresh allegations made by Headley during its reports after his arrest back in 2009 quoted the government officials and opposition parties as demanding explanations of why Headley was allowed to travel freely for years between India, Pakistan, and the US, and why he was working secretly for the DEA.