ISLAMABAD, Pakistan  Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani of Pakistan said Thursday that there was no possibility that the head of the country’s powerful spy organization, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, would obey a summons requesting his appearance before a court in the United States relating to the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.

Mr. Gilani made the announcement while addressing lawmakers in the National Assembly. “ISI, being an extremely sensitive and important organization, would not be asked to appear before a U.S. court,” he said.

The comments were in response to a wrongful death lawsuit filed last month in a federal court in Brooklyn by relatives of victims of the Mumbai attacks, which left 175 people dead, including 9 of the attackers.

Claiming damages, the lawsuit names Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the director general of ISI; his predecessor Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj; and Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the banned militant group that India and the United States consider responsible for the attack on Mumbai, India’s financial capital.