Even as India was publicly pressing for Lashkar operative David Headley’s extradition from the U.S., the then National Security Advisor, M. K. Narayanan, had told the American Ambassador in December 2009 that the government was actually not keen on it but wanted to be seen doing so.
According to WikiLeaks, in a cable to the U.S. State Department on December 17, 2009, then Ambassador Timothy. J. Roemer said that Mr. Narayanan had told him on the issue of Headley’s extradition that it was “difficult not to be seen making the effort,” but that the government was not seeking extradition “at this time.”
In the leaked cable, where Mr. Roemer was seeking New Delhi’s commitment to not request Headley’s extradition, Mr. Narayanan said the Indian Government would be “in the hot seat” if it were seen as pre-emptively relinquishing extradition of one of the main accused of the 26/11 attacks.
“He (Roemer) explained that the threat of extradition to India could cause Headley’s cooperation to dry up, but that allowing the U.S. judicial process to unfold or securing a plea agreement that both reflects his overall culpability and ensures his continued cooperation would maximize our ability to obtain further information from Headley,” the leaked cable said.
Mr. Roemer highlighted the “unprecedented effort to share intelligence in the case of accused Lashkar-e-Taiba operative David Coleman Headley and conveyed that we (the U.S.) were following up on questions and requests that arose from the information we had already provided in the case,” the cable said.
“He (Roemer) stressed that the Indian government’s discretion in protecting this sensitive information was of critical importance, calling attention to recent media speculation containing details of the FBI briefing sourced to unnamed Indian government officials, which could compromise our ability to obtain further cooperation and information from Headley,” the cable added.
Reacting to this, the NSA said that he understood and dismissed the media reports as “preposterous”.
Mr. Roemer also explained to Mr. Narayanan that “furthermore, if Headley were convicted, an extradition request by India would not be considered until his sentence in the United States was fully served, which could be decades, if ever.”
