FBI chief in Chicago for briefing on Headley case

By Arun Kumar, IANS,

Washington: FBI director Robert Mueller is in Chicago for a briefing on the case of Pakistani-American terror suspect David Coleman Headley, who is due to appear in a court later in the day to respond to the charges he helped plan Mumbai terrorist attacks.


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Mueller came to Chicago Wednesday morning for the briefing and is expected to leave afterward, Chicago Sun Times reported.

Son of a Pakistani diplomat and an American socialite mother, Headley, 49, is due to appear before US District Judge Harry Leinenweber for arraignment at 10:45 a.m. (10:15 p.m. Indian Standard Time).

Headley was charged Monday with conducting surveillance on locations around Mumbai that later became the targets of bloody attacks blamed on members of the Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

A conviction on the charge of conspiracy to bomb public places in India that resulted in death carries a possible death penalty.

Headley is also charged with scheming to attack the Jyllands Posten newspaper in Denmark that in 2005 published 12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad and triggering widespread anger in the Muslim world.

His co-defendant in the Denmark terror case, Pakistan-born Canadian businessman Tahawwur Rana, with whom Headley had gone to school, was not charged in the Mumbai case.

Headley’s attorneys John Theis and Robert Seeder have refused to comment on the charges.

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