Into the black hole

M K Bhadrakumar covers the guilty plea of David Headley to charges he aided the Mumbai attacks and points out that the Indians will be none to pleased about the stone that the guilty plea puts over their investigation into the attack.

AG Holder thinks everything is peachy:

The U.S. attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., said in a statement Thursday that “not only has the criminal justice system achieved a guilty plea in this case, but David Headley is now providing us valuable intelligence about terrorist activities.”

“As this case demonstrates, we must continue to use every tool available to defeat terrorism both at home and abroad,” Mr. Holder said.

Though reporters here in the US may choose to ignore the fact that Headley worked for the DEA, and in all likelihood the CIA, it has not been ignored in India.

The deal enables the US government to hold back from formally producing any evidence against Headley in a court of law that might have included details of his links with US intelligence or oblige any cross-examination of Headley by the prosecution.

Nor can the families of the 166 victims be represented by a lawyer to question Headley during his trial commencing in Chicago. Headley's links with the US intelligence will now remain classified information and the Pakistani nationals involved in the Mumbai attacks will get away scot-free. Furthermore, the FBI will not allow Headley's extradition to India and will restrict access so that Indian agencies cannot interrogate him regarding his links with US and Pakistani intelligence.

And though it might be that the plea was to avoid the death penalty, and he will receive a life sentence, once he disappears into the black hole of the federal prison system, he won't be talking in any case.