The Pakistani-American LeT operative pleaded guilty to plotting the 26/11 attack on Mumbai and planning to target a Danish newspaper.
In a volte-face, Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Taiba operative David Coleman Headley, accused of plotting the 26/11 attack on Mumbai and conspiring to target a Danish newspaper, today pleaded guilty before a US court here.
Headley, 49, who was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's joint terrorism task force on October 3 last year, told US district judge Harry Leinenweber that he wanted to change his plea to guilty, in an apparent bid to get a lighter sentence than the maximum death penalty.
Headley, charged on 12 counts, admitted his guilt in all of them.
Headley, son of a Pakistani diplomat and a Philadelphia socialite, admitted using his friend Tahawwur Hussain Rana's immigration company as a cover for surveillance activities in India and Denmark on behalf of Pakistan-based terrorist groups, including the Lashkar.
Wearing an orange jumpsuit with hands and legs shackled,
Headley was produced before the court under unprecedented
security.
Security forces and sniffer dogs were deployed around the court. Special metal detector doors were erected at the entrance of the packed court.
Headley pleaded guilty on all six counts of conspiracy involving bombing public places in India, murdering and maiming persons in India, and providing material support to foreign terrorist plots and the LeT; and six counts of aiding and abetting the murder of US citizens in India.
India blames the Lashkar for carrying out the terror attack on Mumbai in November 2008 in which 166 people were killed, including six Americans.
Headley has also been charged with plotting attacks against the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which published a blasphemous cartoon of Prophet Mohammad.
Earlier, US media said Headley may be bargaining for life in prison. If convicted as things stand, he could face the death penalty.
But during the half-hour hearing, the prosecution promised that it will not seek the death sentence for Headley and he will not be extradited to India or Pakistan.
John Theis, Headley's lawyer, had earlier said his client will plead guilty, but declined to comment on whether he would do so to all the charges against him.
The American terror suspect had got away with a lesser sentence after he was arrested in 1998 for smuggling heroin into the US from Pakistan as he cooperated with the investigation in the case.
He was sentenced to less than two years in prison and thereafter went to Pakistan to conduct undercover surveillance operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
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