Devyani Khobragade, arrested over alleged visa fraud, was formally indicted by a US grand jury and asked to leave; she was granted immunity, which may ease the diplomatic crisis that erupted between the two countries
New Delhi: Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade, who was formally indicted by a US grand jury and asked to leave the US, is on her way back home, nearly a month after her arrest and strip-search for alleged visa fraud. India’s external affairs ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said that “Devyani Khobragade has been given G1 visa with full diplomatic immunity January 8” and is on her way back to India.
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Khobragade’s handcuffing and strip-search on December 12 for alleged visa fraud and underpaying her child’s nanny Sangeeta Richard sparked protests in India. During the time of her arrest, Devyani was India’s deputy consul general in New York. On Thursday, the 39-year-old diplomat was formally indicted by a US grand jury.
However, prosecutors said that Khobragade was also granted immunity and that US officials had asked her to leave the country. In a statement issued after the hearing, her lawyer Daniel Arshack said Khobragade ‘is pleased to be returning to her country. Her head is held high. She knows she has done no wrong and she looks forward to assuring that the truth is known’.
The external affairs ministry, in a statement, said that “Khobragade, counsellor at the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations in New York, was accorded on January 8, 2014 the privileges and immunities of a diplomatic envoy... At the same time, the US government requested the government of India to waive the immunity of Counsellor Khobragade.”
Khobragade reiterated her innocence on charges filed against her, and “affirmed her gratitude to the government of India, in particular to External Affairs Minister (Salman Khurshid), and the people of India, as also the media, for their strong and sustained support during this period,” the statement added. “She also affirmed her determination to ensure that the episode would not leave a lasting impact on her family, in particular, her children, who are still in the United States,” the statement said.
‘Baseless charges’
Arshack, in a statement, said Khobragade “denies the baseless charges brought by the prosecutor’s office in New York and looks forward to providing the proof that over and over, the investigators and prosecutors in this case have been sloppy and wrong. Khobragade did not make any false statements and she paid her domestic worker what she was entitled to be paid.”
“Although the domestic (Sangeeta Richard) came to work here on a short-term contact which required her to return to India at the end of her employment, as a result of the false claims and shoddy investigation, she and her family now enjoy permanent residency in the US. The investigators in this case made serious errors as result of not fully investigating the facts. We look forward to providing the evidence of their blunders,” the statement said.
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