David Coleman Headley (born Daood Sayed Gilani; 30 June 1960) is a Pakistani American terrorist and spy who conspired with the Lashkar-e-Taiba Islamist organization and Pakistani intelligence officers in plotting the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Between 2002 and 2005, Headley made several trips to Pakistan for Lashkar training while simultaneously working as an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.[1] Under the direction of Lashkar chiefs, Headley performed five spying missions in Mumbai to scout targets for the attacks, which killed 168 people. The following year, he performed a similar mission in Copenhagen to help plan an attack against the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which had published cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. He was arrested at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago while on his way to Pakistan in October 2009.[1][2]
The Indian public has followed Headley's story closely, considering him to be their equivalent of Osama bin Laden. U.S. authorities gave Indian investigators direct access to Headley,[3] but some in India have questioned why the U.S. had not shared suspicions about him with Indian authorities before the Mumbai attacks.[4] At the trial of Tahawwur Hussain Rana, an alleged co-conspirator, Headley gave detailed information about the participation of Pakistan's Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in carrying out the attacks.[5][6] However, in 2011, Headley testified that the ISI leadership was not involved in planning the attacks.[7]
Since his arrest and guilty plea, Headley has cooperated with U.S. and Indian authorities and given information about his associates.[8][9][10][11] On January 24, 2013, a U.S. federal court sentenced Headley to 35 years in prison for his role in the Mumbai attacks.
