Visa Fraud Case: Charges against Devyani to stay, says US

Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade does not enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution on charges of visa fraud and making false statements, the US State Department said in papers filed to a court here.

The declaration, dated January 29 and signed by the attorney-advisor in the Office of the Legal Advisor of the Department of State Stephen Kerr, was filed to the court on Friday by Manhattan's India-born federal prosecutor Preet Bharara in support of his memorandum opposing 39-year-old Khobragade's motion to dismiss the indictment against her.

It concludes that federal authorities were not wrong in arresting and detaining Khobragade on visa fraud charges on December 12 since she did not have full diplomatic immunity in her capacity as deputy consul general.

"The Department of State concludes Khobragade did not enjoy immunity from arrest or detention at the time of her arrest in this case, and she does not presently enjoy immunity from prosecution for the crimes charged in the indictment," the State Department declaration said.

The declaration is part of eight supporting documents Bharara had filed to the court as proof Khobragade was not immune from prosecution and the indictment against her not be dismissed.

Bharara's motion is in response to a request by Khobragade's lawyer Daniel Arshack on January 14 that asked the court to dismiss the indictment and terminate any "open" arrest warrants or requests for her extradition.

Arshack argued Khobragade was "cloaked" in diplomatic immunity and could not face prosecution in the US.

Bharara said the State Department, "whose views must be given great weight", has "unequivocally concluded" Khobragade did not employ her domestic worker Sangeeta Richard in her capacity as deputy consul general and, hence, did not enjoy immunity from prosecution for the "crimes" she was arrested in December.

The State Department also determined her immunity in connection with her short-lived stint at the Indian mission to the UN from January 8 to January 9 before she was asked to leave the US "is no bar to prosecution."

A 1999-batch IFS officer, Khobragade was arrested on visa fraud charges, 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, among other steps.

She was indicted on visa fraud and making false statements by a US grand jury. She returned after she was asked to leave the US by the State Department.

"From the time of her departure from the US on January 9 through the present, Khobragade enjoys residual diplomatic immunity only for acts she performed in the exercise of her functions as a member of the mission from January 8 to January 9," Bharara said.

"The acts giving rise to the charges in the indictment were not performed in Khobragade's exercise of her functions as a member of the mission both because they were performed well before her assignment to the Permanent Mission of India to the UN and because the hiring of Richard was not an official act," he added, quoting the declaration.

"The defendant currently enjoys no diplomatic status and at the time of her arrest the defendant's position as a consular official gave her immunity from prosecution for official acts only.

"It did not extend to the crimes charged in the indictment, private acts taken in relation to the employment of a domestic worker and a visa application submitted to the US government in connection with that employment," he said.

Bharara has alleged that the indictment charges offenses based on Khobragade's private conduct and not her official conduct. "Her domestic worker was not an employee of the Consulate General of India and did not perform work related to consular functions," he added.

He said Khobragade's motion is an attempt to "concoct a theory of immunity" by using a UN accreditation that she had for a brief time during the visit of the Indian Prime Minister for the annual session of the General Assembly last year. "That attempt fails both factually and legally and it gives her no added immunity from the charges here," Bharara said, adding that her motion is based exclusively on the "unsupportable claim" that she "somehow obtained and retains" full diplomatic immunity from supposedly assuming a position as 'Special advisor to the UN' on August 26, 2013.

Khobragade's assertion that the UN card gave her immunity is "both convoluted and baseless," Bharara added. He said that Khobragade's claims that she had diplomatic immunity from August to December 2013 as a member of India's delegation to the UN is "incorrect and is flatly rejected by the State Department."

The State Department declaration notes that Khobragade was "not exercising any function" related to the UN at or immediately before or after the time of her arrest.

Neither did she travel from India to New York for business related to the UN, a condition that could have accorded her full diplomatic immunity.