Indiana:
IIT alumnus Vikram Buddhi has been sentenced to 4 years and 9 months in prison and three years of supervised release for posting hate messages in 2006 to the then US President George W Bush.
The 38-year old PhD student of Perdue University will have to spend an additional three years under the supervision of a probation officer.
Reacting to the judgement, Buddhi said: "This is a grave miscarriage of justice. I'm not the kind of person the US government is portraying me to be. Every person has a right to have an opinion. I got the short end of the stick in this case."
Vikram Buddhi has said that he will be filing an appeal against the sentence. Buddhi has 10 days to appeal against the verdict.
"Looking at the pattern from the beginning, I am not surprised. The judge has been against him since the beginning, said Dr Subba Rao, Vikram Buddhi's father.
Earlier on Thursday, there was high drama in the Indiana court where Buddhi was to be sentenced. Buddhi said he wanted to fire his lawyer. The IIT alumnus, who has been in prison since 2006, said his lawyer had not bothered to meet with him or share his strategy with the PhD student.
The indictment alleged that Buddhi made threats against the then US president, Vice-President Dick Cheney, and their wives, and called for bombings of US infrastructure.
Since Buddhi had already fired his previous lawyer, the judge said he had to either stick with his current counsel or represent himself.
A former Math and Electrical Engineering student, who has been reading law books from a poorly-stocked prison library chose the latter saying "I have no choice but to represent myself." From then on, Buddhi spent 7 hours, valiantly trying to defend himself. At one point, when he struggled and took some time to frame his cross-examination questions, the judge said sarcastically, "Sure, take your time. We'll just sit here all day. How's that?"
Buddhi has all along claimed he's innocent. The hope for him right now lies in the fact that he can appeal.
Vikram Buddhi vs USAMost Indians who come to study in the United States, come in the hope of building a future in a country that is open free and fair. And there is scarcely one who returns who does not make unflattering comparisons between the rule of law in India and the United States.
It is this that makes the Vikram Buddhi case so shocking. Buddhi claims he is a powerless immigrant, with no family, resources, or support, up against a system bent on denying him justice.
One must wonder - would the outcome of Buddhi's case have been any different if the Indian government or the Indian consulates in the US had intervened either a legal or diplomatic level. Which leads one to ask the obvious question - had Vikram been an American in India writing inflammatory messages about Manmohan Singh or Sonia Gandhi, would he have suffered the same fate?
Buddhi was arrested for hate speech against then US President George Bush at the height of a growing protest movement against a failing intervention in Iraq.
Like millions of people across the world, Vikram was incensed. His postings were controversial, even threatening.
Vikram's father, a former Navy captain, has been chasing justice for his son for the past 3 years.
Subbarao had his own share of controversies when his own country once accused him of being a US spy and kept him in jail for over a year, until he fought his own case and disproved the charges against him.
NDTV spoke to Buddhi's former lawyer
NDTV spoke with attorney Arlington Foley who was Buddhi's lawyer before he was fired and Buddhi took over his own defence. Foley was then appointed by the judge as Buddhi's second counsel. Here is the full interview:
Every person convicted of a crime in the US has the right to appeal. The way that is perfected is to file the notice of an appeal and I have been asked by the court to make sure that it is done because he is representing himself, without an attorney, I have been asked by the court to have that done.
Q. Has Vikram indicated that he wants to access this right?
-Yes, he is definitely wants to appeal.
Q. How long does he have to do so, 10 days?
- There is a 10-day window for filing the notice. If the notice is not filed within 10 days then his right to appeal will be forfeited and I am going to make sure that that gets done.
Q. He has been sentenced to 4 years and 9 months but he has also spent a considerable amount in jail. Does that get accounted for?
- Yes, typically of some body gets sentenced to 57 months he will serve approximately 85% of that time. Generally, they give him credit for the time that he has been incarcerated previous to his sentencing.
Q. What are the chances of his being deported?
- I am not a deportation attorney. I believe however the criteria of that court are seriously affected by the fact that he is a convicted felon. So I think it will weigh very heavily in their determination and plus the nature of the charges that he was convicted of.
Q. In your experience as a lawyer is 4 years and 9 months in jail for this a harsh sentence?
- According to what the law is, the guidelines are it was an appropriate and fair sentence. May be Mr. Buddhi does not think so. But I think it was well thought of and well reasoned by the judge Actually I though that the judge was kind to Mr. Buddhi.
Q. Mr. Buddhi says he did not get adequate legal representation perhaps implying because he is not an US citizen and because he is a student and did not know this way around the system. Your response?
- I should not comment on that but in the United States everyone, no matter what his or her crime has a right to an attorney. He was given that right twice. One with John martin who is a very good attorney who did a very good job and has courses myself, he chooses that he had to say and do what he had to do. I can't comment.
Q. He seemed to say in his closing argument that this is a case of free speech and expression.
- I think he has a good argument there. I think that there is a good chance that it is going to be litigated in the court of appeals and that will probably be an issue that they will bring up in the appeal. It is difficult for me to say one way or the other whether it is going to be a valid argument in front of the court of appeals. This judges though this judge obviously thought that it was not. Freedom of speech has its limitations but off course we all know that we cant what ever we want to say.