Bringing 26/11 culprits to book unfinished business for US:Hillary Clinton
New Delhi, Jan 30 : Outgoing US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today said bringing the culprits of the Mumbai terror attack to book was an unfinished business and her country would not be walking away from it.
Ms Clinton justified the life sentence given to David Coleman Headley by a US court, which was termed as
'disappointing' by India. She said the court while punishing him for his participation in the 26/11 horror, also gave concession to him for his cooperation in the investigations into the incident.
Just two days before laying down office, Ms Clinton was answering questions
from audience from across the globe in a town hall event in Washington.
''A lot of useful information was obtained, and I think that this sentence represents both the punishment that he richly
deserves for his participation, but also a recognition of the role
that he has played and is expected to continue to play in supporting Indian and American efforts to prevent the kind of horrific attack that occurred in Mumbai,'' she said in reply to a question from an Indian audience.
Ms Clinton sought to point out that the US Administration was successful in capturing and eliminating a number of the most dangerous terrorists who had safe haven inside Pakistan.
The US had continued to press the Pakistani Government, because the terrorists inside that country were first and foremost an ongoing threat to the stability of Pakistan, and they needed to deal with it because of that, as well as the implications for India, Afghanistan, the United States, and elsewhere,'' she said.
''So we're not giving up. We are on this job literally every single day. And we've improved our information sharing, our law enforcement cooperation with India, and I think that will pay dividends in years to come,'' she said.
In this context, she welcomed the Manmohan Singh-Zardari initiative to improve relations between India and Pakistan and said these efforts to improve communication, business, trade, commerce had helped to create a more receptive environment for dealing with the serious threats posed by terrorism.