Devyani Khobragade, the Indian
diplomat accused of visa fraud for allegedly underpaying her
babysitter, left the U.S. after she was indicted in a case that
roiled relations between the two countries.
Khobragade, 39, was charged yesterday with making
“multiple false representations” to U.S. authorities to obtain
a visa for the caretaker, and the State Department later ordered
her to leave the country after India denied waiving her
diplomatic immunity. Her flight has already left the U.S.,
according to an Indian government official who asked not to be
identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
Khobragade’s departure may resolve a diplomatic row that
threatened to jeopardize a growing economic relationship as
annual trade in goods and services between the countries nears
$100 billion. The dispute, which erupted after reports that she
was strip-searched, put a cloud over President Barack Obama’s
goal of strengthening U.S.-India ties.
“Even though the case is being resolved, it caused waves
that will take time to resolve and it has caused reputational
harm on both sides,” P.J. Crowley, a former State Department
spokesman, said in an e-mail. “Both sides need to make
conciliatory gestures in the aftermath,” he wrote. “Wounds do
heal, but as always, they leave a scar.”
India’s Ministry of External Affairs said today Khobragade
had been transferred to a post in New Delhi and that it had
declined a U.S. request to waive her diplomatic immunity.
Strip Search
Khobragade said the charges against her were false and
baseless, Press Trust of India reported today, citing comments
she gave before boarding the plane back to India.
“Treating a human being in such an inhumane way has been
an utter violation of human rights,” Uttam Khobragade, the
diplomat’s father and a former Indian bureaucrat, told reporters
in televised comments, referring to his daughter. “I’m very
grateful to the Indian government. They did everything that
could’ve been done.”
Khobragade, first charged Dec. 12, was accused of paying
her babysitter about $3.31 per hour, below the New York minimum
wage of $7.25 per hour. Her case triggered Indian outrage on
reports that she was arrested in front of her daughter’s school
in upper Manhattan and strip-searched while being held with
other female suspects. She was released on $250,000 bond, which
was unsecured.
‘Temporary Hiccup’
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has said the strip-search was standard practice in an arrest. The incident sparked
an uproar in India as the nation of 1.2 billion people prepares
for elections in a few months.
“Ultimately, this will just be a temporary hiccup which
won’t prevent India and the U.S. from siding together on more
serious issues,” said Harinder Sekhon, who has written two
books on India-U.S. relations. “Both sides need to show more
maturity and end these tit-for-tat actions which will only
further complicate the relationship.”
The Indian government demonstrated its displeasure with a
variety of small reprisals, including removing some security
barriers at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, lifting traffic-violation exemptions for U.S. embassy cars, and ordering the
American Center, a venue in central New Delhi for U.S. cultural
programs, to halt its activities.
Trips Postponed
The U.S. countered by postponing anticipated visits to
India by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Nisha Desai Biswal,
the U.S. assistant secretary of state responsible for India.
During a visit in November 2010, Obama called the
relationship with India “one of the defining and indispensable
partnerships of the 21st century.”
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was Obama’s first
official diplomatic guest in 2009, last week described a deal
with the U.S. that allowed it to import nuclear technology as
his greatest achievement during a decade in power. He told
reporters in New Delhi that diplomacy should be given a chance
to resolve the recent “hiccups” in relations.
Raymond Vickery, a top U.S. trade official under President
Bill Clinton and now a senior director at the Albright
Stonebridge Group in Washington, said that expanding trade and
investment has been “the underlying driver” in U.S.-India
relations.
Business Ties
Speaking before the late legal developments, Vickery said
business relations hadn’t yet been hurt by the dispute. The
bilateral trade in goods and services reached $92.5 billion in
2012 from $59.9 billion in 2009, the first year of the Obama
administration, according to a joint statement following U.S.-
India economic talks in October.
Indian foreign direct investment in the U.S. surged 23-fold
to about $5.2 billion in the 10 years through 2012, making India
one of the fastest growing sources of investment into the U.S.,
according to the statement.
At the hearing in Manhattan, Khobragade’s lawyer Daniel
Arshack said he told her not to board an Air India plane
yesterday afternoon because “there was at least a possibility
that it would be viewed as flight” from prosecution.
Arshack said his client had “diplomatic status” and told
U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin that she no longer had
jurisdiction over the case.
Bail Decision
“I was not willing to permit her to depart without
appearing before your honor,” Arshack said. He asked Scheindlin
to vacate his client’s bail.
Scheindlin later agreed that Khobragade wouldn’t be accused
of bail jumping if she agreed to the State Department’s request.
The judge deferred a decision on bail to a later date.
“We are pleased that the United States Department of State
did the right thing today by recognizing the diplomatic status
to which Dr. Khobragade has always been entitled,” Arshack said
in a statement issued last night. He accused the government of
committing a series of “blunders.”
The visa fraud charge against Khobragade carries a maximum
prison term of 10 years, while the false statements charge has a
maximum term of five years, according to prosecutors in
Bharara’s office.
In a contract Khobragade submitted as part of the visa
application, the diplomat said she paid the babysitter $9.75 an
hour, State Department Special Agent Mark Smith said in the
original criminal complaint. In a second contract, the diplomat
agreed to pay the babysitter 30,000 rupees a month, or $573, the
U.S. said, which came out to $3.31 an hour. New York minimum
wage is $7.25 per hour.
‘Exploitative’ Conditions
“Khobragade did not want to pay the victim the required
wages under U.S. law or provide the victim with other
protections against exploitative work conditions mandated by
U.S. law (and widely publicized to foreign diplomats and foreign
officials),” according to the indictment.
After her arrest, Khobragade was named by her country to
serve as a member of its permanent mission to the United
Nations, a position that gave her a higher level of diplomatic
immunity than she enjoyed as deputy consul general at India’s
consulate general in New York.
The U.S. accepted the request to accredit Khobragade to the
UN mission, according to a State Department news release.
Seeking to deny such a request would be almost without
precedent, except in matters of national security including
espionage, the department said.
The U.S. first asked for a waiver of diplomatic immunity,
which India subsequently denied, then requested that she return
to India, the department said.
The case is U.S. v. Khobragade, 14-cr-00008, U.S. District
Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
To contact the reporters on this story:
Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Manhattan at
pathurtado@bloomberg.net;
Terry Atlas in Washington at
tatlas@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Daniel Ten Kate at
dtenkate@bloomberg.net;
Michael Hytha at
mhytha@bloomberg.net;
John Walcott at
jwalcott9@bloomberg.net
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