Posted on 12/27/2013 10:04:38 AM PST by James C. Bennett
NEW DELHI India has sought details about staff in American schools in the country for possible tax violations and revoked ID cards of U.S. consular officials and their families, retaliatory steps for the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York on criminal charges.
The measures suggest that the two countries are no closer to a resolution of a diplomatic dispute over the treatment of Deputy Consul General Devyani Khobragade this month on charges of visa fraud and underpayment of her housekeeper.
Khobragade, who has denied the charges, was handcuffed and strip-searched while in custody despite informing U.S. marshals about her diplomatic immunity, sparking outrage in India.
An Indian government official said on Friday that New Delhi had asked the U.S. embassy to provide details about people working in American schools and other U.S. government facilities to determine if they had permission to do so and if they were paying taxes that are mandatory under Indian law.
Diplomats' spouses who take up work in schools or other embassy facilities are supposed to inform the host country.
Violations of this kind had often been ignored, but now India would not turn a blind eye, the official said.
The U.S. embassy declined to comment on the latest steps.
India had also withdrawn some privileges U.S. diplomats and their families enjoy and would treat them as Indian officials are treated in the United States, the official said.
Since the bilateral blow-up, U.S. ambassador Nancy Powell has been refused special privileges at New Delhi airport.
"We have said all access is on a reciprocal basis," the government official said. "She is not going to get the benefits that the Indian ambassador in U.S. doesn't get.".
India has demanded that the charges be dropped and that the United States apologise for not respecting her immunity.
(Excerpt) Read more at in.mobile.reuters.com ...
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US agent goofed in Indian diplomat arrest – lawyer
Published time: December 26, 2013 19:36
The controversial arrest and strip search of an Indian diplomat in New York came after the blatant mistake of a US agent, her lawyer says. The agent allegedly mistook the diplomat’s salary with her housekeeper's wages, triggering the “disastrous” row.
Attorney Daniel Arshack - who represents Devyani Khobragade, India’s deputy consul general in New York - on Tuesday accused US authorities of bungling the investigation leading to his client’s arrest, AP reported.
According to Arshack, the US agent who drew up charges against the diplomat “erroneously and disastrously” mistook Khobragade’s listed base salary of $4,500 per month for what she intended to pay her housekeeper. The mistake was allegedly made while reading a form submitted on behalf of the domestic worker.
The diplomat’s salary was listed on the form for the purpose of providing proof that she earned enough money to pay her housekeeper $1,560 per month, or $9.75 per hour, for a 40-hour work-week, the lawyer said.
According to AP, the mistake “became apparent” to Arshack after he and others closely reviewed the forms that Khobragade was required to submit.
“It’s incredibly unsexy kind of information, but it does go right to the heart of what this is about,” the lawyer said.
The Indian diplomat was arrested on December 12 on charges of making false declarations on a visa application for her New York City housekeeper, later identified as Sangeeta Richard.
In court documents, US authorities claimed Khobragade falsely stated that she paid Richard $4,500 per month for a 40-hour work-week.
Moreover, the charging document alleged that Khobragade secretly signed a second contract with Richard, in which she agreed to pay her the equivalent of around $570 a month – an amount which is illegal under US minimum wage laws. The housekeeper ended up receiving even less than that – about $3.31 per hour for a 40-hour workweek, the complaint said.
Nearly one week after her arrest, Khobragade said in an emailed statement to media she was subject to “repeated handcuffing, stripping and cavity searches,” despite asserting that she had diplomatic immunity.
The US State Department then said in a statement that Khobragade only had consular immunity - which is separate from diplomatic immunity and does not prevent career officers or employees from being arrested.
Khobragade has since been released on $250,000 bail and was transferred to India’s United Nations mission in New York after the UN approved a request from India to accredit the diplomat.
However, Khobragade still needs the approval of the US State Department in order to receive a UN post granting her broader immunity. US officials have warned that the newly acquired diplomatic immunity will not exempt the Indian diplomat from the ongoing investigation – something that her lawyer stoutly denies.
If convicted, Khobragade - who says she has already suffered from such “indignities” as strip-searching and spending time in a cell with “drug addicts” - could face a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail for visa fraud and five years for making a false declaration.
The incident has triggered outrage in India and sparked a diplomatic row between New Delhi and Washington.
India’s foreign minister, Salman Khurshid, has called Khobragade’s treatment “completely unacceptable.”
In response to the incident, New Delhi reportedly withdrew all ID cards issued to officials at US consulates across India, according to AFP. It ordered police to remove safety barriers around the US Embassy, and announced a freeze on duty-free alcohol and food imports. This was topped by promises to review work conditions and salaries of Indians working in US consulates.
US Secretary of State John Kerry expressed regret over the incident on Wednesday, but State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said the treatment of the Indian diplomat was in accordance with “standard procedures.”
While prosecutors have declined to comment on Arshack’s latest claims, US Attorney Preet Bharara earlier questioned why there was “precious little outrage” about the alleged treatment of the Indian housekeeper, and vowed to uphold the law and hold lawbreakers accountable “no matter what their societal status and no matter how powerful, rich or connected they are.”
According to Reuters, the US has flown Richard’s family out of India. The move follows Bharara’s allegations of US attempts to “silence” the housekeeper and compel her to return home.
Another disaster coming from the total lack of leadership from the Obama Administration. Obama is doing all he can to DESTROY foreign relations between the USA and other countries.
‘Devyani Khobragade deputed to UN, had full immunity when arrested’
TNN | Dec 27, 2013, 12.59 AM IST
NEW DELHI: In his zeal to net the big fish, US attorney Preet Bharara may have single-handedly endangered Indo-US relations. As it now turns out, diplomat Devyani Khobragade was accredited as an advisor to the Permanent Mission of India to the UN, allowing her full immunity from personal arrest or detention, when she was picked up from her children’s school by US authorities in early December.
Government sources said Khobragade was accredited Advisor to the Indian Mission to the UN on August 26, 2013 — to help the mission with work related to the General Assembly — and her accreditation was valid until December 31.
As sources here highlighted, the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations Article 4 Section 11A specifies “immunities from personal arrest or detention and from the seizure of their personal baggage” of all representatives of members to the United Nations.
Section 16 of the same Article specifies that the expression “Representative” shall be deemed to include all delegates, deputy delegates, advisors, technical experts and secretaries of delegations. She was accredited as advisor on August 26 and was transferred to the permanent mission after the arrest and is currently holding the position of counsellor.
Because she was attached to the permanent mission only temporarily (until December 31), the State Department was not required to issue its own identity card and it is possible that they may not have known about Khobragade’s status. Sources said this was all the more reason for the State Department to have informed India about the move to arrest Khobragade. As the diplomat was working as acting consul general, the US ought to have notified India about her arrest under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The MEA joint secretary who handles the US, Vikram Doraiswamy, was in that country on the day Khobragade was arrested, but he wasn’t informed about it.
The alacrity with which the US “evacuated” Khobragade’s domestic help Sangeeta Richard’s family, days before the diplomat’s arrest, rattled New Delhi. Bharara later justified this in a statement saying the Justice Department was “compelled” to make sure that victim, witnesses and their families “are safe and secure while cases are pending”. As the case now unravels fast, several US officials, especially those who handled Khobragade’s arrest, may have opened themselves to claims for damages and liability.
The government has also discovered that the amount of $4,500 quoted by Bharara as salary promised to Sangeeta by Khobragade was actually just a mention of the employer’s salary on the help’s visa application form.
The State Department’s own guidelines on diplomatic and consular immunity emphasize that law enforcement officials need to be sensitive because short-term official visitors from other States to the United Nations or to international conferences convened by the UN may enjoy full diplomatic immunity equivalent to that afforded diplomatic agents. “Owing to the temporary nature of their visit, such officials will normally not have the usual official identity documents recognizable in the United States. Law enforcement officials (particularly in New York) should be sensitive to the existence of this situation and always coordinate with the US authorities indicated in the list of Useful Phone Numbers if confronted with an apparent offender appearing to fall into this category’,” it states.
A diplomat’s daughter, Krittika Biswas, had last year filed a lawsuit in a NYC court seeking $1.5 million as damages for her wrongful arrest.
Another former friendly power of the US being tossed overboard.
Lurch and pRESIDENT Valerie Jarrett
have stepped into it again.
It’s standard procedure to strip-search and search body cavities for what amount to alleged violations of minimum wage laws? Folks gotta rethink that.
Regardless of whether or not the deputy consul general was susceptible to arrest or not, this has been so badly mishandled, to protect the interests of our diplomats in other countries, the government needs to drop all charges, declare the woman persona non grata, and be done with it.
Violations of diplomatic immunity are acts of barbarism, invalidating the claim of legitimacy for a supposed nation-state.
Visa fraud and underpaying an employee are fairly serious matters...far more serious than is the typical traffic violation,for example.It might not have been wise to strip search this individual (if that did,in fact,occur) but nobody should expect that these issues will be ignored.
Something doesn't add up here.I can't put my finger on it but something's just not right.
Deputy Consul General Devyani Khobragade
Should have claimed to be a militant Muslim and to hate America.
We’d have picked up his tab, flown his country’s flag at the World Trade Center and given him some foreign aide
This administration was involved-
ANY diplomat detained in ANY country- especially in the
U.S.- has IMMEDIATE access to our State Department-
(strip searched?- $250,000 bail?- what the H—)
O’bummer and Kerry- want to destroy relations with india-
Need to cozy up to Pakistan,China, the Norks, and Vietnam-
I will bet any money - the next false arrest- South Korea, then Taiwan, last Japan- the people in charge of this country- hate America and it’s allies.
The article forgot to point out that the Indian diplomat was strip searched and then subjected to a vaginal search and an anal search.
Had this happened to a Russian diplomat or a Chinese diplomat we’d be at war right now.
75% of Indian-Americans in swing states voted for Obama. I hope the get really mad and vote Republican next time, but who knows.
http://zeenews.india.com/news/us-presidential-elections-2012/indian-americans-vote-for-obama-in-swing-states_809837.html
It was a lady not a man. I still don’t understand why diplomatic immunity was ignored. Especially agains’t one of our best allies. The whole thing is screwy.
Probably on purpose as usual.
Yet another in what has become and endless string of Obama administration gaffes.
The current president is the biggest *ssclown ever to occupy the White House.
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