India says 35 years jail not enough for Mumbai plotter

NEW DELHI (AFP) – India’s foreign minister said Friday that  the US planner of the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks should have got a harsher  sentence than 35 years in prison and added that New Delhi still wanted his  extradition.

David Headley, 52, who admitted to scouting targets for the Mumbai attacks  in which 166 people died, cooperated with US authorities to avoid the death  penalty during his sentencing in Chicago on Thursday.

“If we would have tried him, we would have sought much more (punishment). But the judge is bound by the structured system of justice delivery in the US,”  Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid told India’s CNN-IBN TV network.

“It’s a beginning,” Khurshid told other reporters in New Delhi.

“This should go a long way in hopefully conveying a very clear message”  that such acts are not tolerated, he added.

Last November, India executed 25-year-old Pakistani-born Mohammed Ajmal  Kasab, the sole surviving gunman from the Mumbai rampage that lasted three days  and traumatised India.

On the thorny issue of Headley’s extradition, Khurshid said India has been  “consistently” pushing its demand with Washington.

US prosecutors agreed not to extradite Headley in exchange for his  cooperation after his 2009 arrest in Chicago as he was about to board a flight  to Pakistan.

US authorities told the court that Headley cooperated with authorities and  provided valuable details about the Pakistan-based militant group  Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is blamed for orchestrating the attacks.