Friday, January 10, 2014

Indian Diplomat Devyani Khorbragade Leaves the U.S. For India

Devyani Khobragade Indicted For Visa Fraud; Leaves For India

By IndiaTimes
January 10, 2014, 8:55 am IST
New York

Senior Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade was today indicted for visa fraud and making false statements by a grand jury which held that the charges against her will remain even as she headed back to India after being accorded full diplomatic immunity.

The charges against 39-year-old Khobragade will remain and she will have to face trial, if she returns to the US without diplomatic immunity, US Attorney Preet Bharara said in a letter to District Judge Shira Scheindlin.

Bharara said the grand jury has indicted the diplomat on two counts of visa fraud and making false statements in connection with the visa application of her domestic help Sangeeta Richard.

“There will not need to be an arraignment on the Indictment scheduled at this time. We understand that the defendant was very recently accorded diplomatic immunity status,” Bharara said in his letter.

“Therefore, the charges will remain pending until such time as she can be brought to Court to face the charges, either through a waiver of immunity or the defendant’s return to the United States in a non-immune status. The time between now and the time that she is able to be brought before the Court is excluded automatically under the Speedy Trial Act, pursuant to Title 18, United States Code, Section 3161(h)(3) (A), which provides for the exclusion of any period of delay resulting from the unavailability of the defendant,” he said.

“The charges against me are false and baseless. I look forward to proving them wrong,” Khobragade told PTI as she boarded the plane back to India.

She also affirmed her determination to ensure that this episode does not leave a lasting imprint on her family, in particular her children who are still in the US.

Khobragade was granted full diplomatic immunity on January 8 under the India-US Headquarters agreement.

On January 9, the US request for waiver of diplomatic immunity to Khobragade was refused by India.

A 1999-batch IFS officer, Khobragade, was arrested on December 12 on charges of making false declarations in a visa application for her maid. She was released on a $250,000 bond.

The diplomat was strip searched and held with criminals, triggering a row between the two sides with India retaliating by downgrading privileges of certain category of US diplomats.

“The Government respectfully writes to advise the Court that earlier today, the grand jury voted on and returned the enclosed Indictment charging Devyani Khobragade, the defendant, in two counts with visa fraud and making false statements in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1546, 1001, and 2,” Bharara said.

“In this case, the defendant is unavailable because her ‘whereabouts are known but [her] presence for trial cannot be obtained by due diligence or [she] resists appearing at or being returned for trial’,” he said.

Bharara made it clear that Khobragade will be prosecuted if she returns to the US without diplomatic immunity.

“We will alert the Court promptly if we learn that the defendant returns to the United States in a non-immune capacity, at which time the Government will proceed to prosecute this case and prove the charges in the Indictment,” he added.

After the row broke out, Khobragade was transferred to India’s Permanent Mission to the UN. Following her arrest, her passport was kept in court’s custody.

PTI


10 January 2014
Last updated at 02:42 ET
BBC World Service

Indian media: End of diplomatic row with US over Devyani Khobragade?

The diplomatic immunity given to India's deputy consul general in the US is likely to put an end to the month-long diplomatic row between Washington and Delhi, papers say.

Devyani Khobragade was formally indicted by a US grand jury on Thursday over charges of visa fraud and of underpaying her housekeeper in New York.

Prosecutors said she had also been granted immunity and that US officials had asked her to leave the country. Indian officials said she was on her way back.

Ms Khobragade was arrested and strip-searched last month and her alleged "humiliation" had sparked a series of reprisals from Delhi amid strong public anger.

But papers feel her return to India will help normalise the "strained" bilateral ties between Washington and Delhi.

"This should hopefully bring an end to a crisis in relations between India and the US, starting 12 December, when Khobragade was arrested in New York, and strip-searched," says the Hindustan Times in a report.

The India Today magazine feels her homecoming "could be seen as a resolution of the diplomatic row".

Papers add that Ms Khobragade may have been indicted in the US, but her diplomatic immunity is likely to protect Delhi-Washington ties from deteriorating further.

"The United States and India put a lid on a torrid month-long diplomatic fiasco, agreeing on Thursday to remove the controversial diplomat from New York," says The Times of India.

The daily also highlights the fact that the issue is far from resolved because the diplomat's family is still in the US.

"Ms Khobragade is married to a New York-born Indian-American who is a US citizen. The couple has two school-going children and the eventual settlement has to take into account ways to keep the family together," it adds.

Meanwhile, a new helpline to assist people deal with demands for bribes from government workers in Delhi has received extensive praise.

The one-year-old Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), or Common Man's Party, made an impressive debut in the recent Delhi assembly elections and formed a government with a promise to put an end to corruption.

"A day after it was launched, the new anti-corruption helpline number has the people of Delhi hoping that incidents of corruption faced by the common man will come down drastically," says the First Post website.

Concern for homeless

Staying with national news, a local court in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh has convicted the family of Ramalinga Raju, the founder of software services giant Satyam Computers, for tax evasion, The Deccan Chronicle reports.

"We served notices to them [Mr Raju's wife Nandini and her sons], and filed a prosecution complaint in the court in 2011…
Though they had sufficient means to pay the tax, they deliberately did not pay," the report quotes A Ramakrishna Reddy, public prosecutor for the income-tax department, as saying.

A new company, Mahindra Satyam, was created after Tech Mahindra bought a major stake in Satyam Computers, the firm [formerly headed by Mr Raju] involved in one of India's biggest accounting frauds. Mr Raju is currently out on bail.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission has decided not to go ahead with the proposed tie-up with Google for voter facilitation services ahead of the general elections.

Various parties, including the Congress and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, had expressed concerns that the tie-up may pose a threat to India's national security, The Economic Times reports.

And finally, the Delhi High Court has criticised the state government for not having a policy for the homeless, The Times of India reports.

"They [Delhi government] are directed to file an affidavit indicating the policy of the state regarding permanent facilities which they are going to create for the homeless people," the report quotes the court as saying.

The court was "disturbed to learn about two recent deaths of homeless people in the capital", it adds.

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