Mumbai, Nov 13 (IANS) Mumbai realty broker Sunny Singh said that the LeT terror suspect David Coleman Headley, in custody of the FBI, and his “wife” had approached him in early October to rent a flat in Mumbai through a former French client.
However, since Headley could not provide proper documents, he did not help him get a flat, Singh told mediapersons here Friday evening.

Singh, running a realty consultant office in Bandra west, said that Headley, accompanied by a woman Ana, who he identified as his wife, had approached him more than one-and-half months ago.

He was interested in renting a flat within a monthly budget of around Rs.50,000-55,000. Singh’s former client, a French woman named Mariana, had given Headley a reference.

Singh met him twice and on both occasions the couple had come wearing sober clothes. Headley carried a laptop and said he was living in a hotel and wanted to hire a flat for a year, Singh recalled.

He spoke with an American accent and Singh was convinced that he was a foreign national looking for a suitable accommodation in the city.

With Bandra being a natural favourite of foreign nationals and MNC employees, he showed Headley a few properties in Bandra Reclamation. Headley selected a place in the upscale Pali Hill area.

“However, I asked him for copies of his visa, passport and other identity papers, which he was not ready to provide,” he said.

When Singh asked him to provide his company’s work permit or an application on a letterhead, he was not willing to provide even that and the deal collapsed at this point, he said.

“I had even sent an assistant for the papers, but the couple behaved very rudely with him. He said we should be bothered about only the rental and not the documents, which was not agreeable to me. The deal fell through,” Sunny said.