Washington, November 10
A team of Indian intelligence officials left the US disappointed after a week-long stay here as they could not question American national David Coleman Headley, arrested by the FBI on charges of plotting a major terror attack in India at the behest of Pakistan-based LeT.

Sources familiar with the visit of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officials termed “bureaucratic” and “procedural” hurdles as the main reason for them not being successful in interrogation of Headley, who is now lodged in a Chicago jail.

The 49-year-old Headley, according to the FBI charge sheet, was being used by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) to target among others the National Defence College in New Delhi, the Doon school in Dehradun and Woodstock school in Mussoorie.

The Indian team, names of its members have not been revealed to the media so far, arrived in Washington on November 1 and was scheduled to grill Headley the next day.

However, the Indian team is believed to have spent most of their time in Washington and they could not make their planned trip to Chicago - where Headley and his co-conspirator Tahawwur Hussain Rana are lodged in a jail - to interrogate the duo.

The team left for India through New York on November 8.

In Washington, officials told the Indian officials had a series of meetings with their FBI counterparts during which the American intelligence officials shared their investigation and interrogation details with them.

Another source told the reluctance on the part of the FBI to let a foreign intelligence agency interrogate one of the terror suspects under its custody was because its own investigation had not been completed.

The Indian team is expected to return to the US soon to question Headley, the sources said.

Headley was arrested on October 18 along with Rana, a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin, by FBI at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport before boarding a flight to Philadelphia, intending to travel to Pakistan. — PTI