Indian diplomat seeks dismissal of visa charges, arguing permanent immunity
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Version 0 of 1. A lawyer for Devyani Khobragade, the Indian diplomat who left the US last week after indictment for visa fraud and underpaying domestic staff, has asked a US judge to throw out the charges against her. The arrest of Khobragade, 39, led to the worst diplomatic row between the United States and India for decades and prompted a range of retaliatory measures against US diplomats in Delhi. Though John Kerry, the US secretary of state, expressed regret shortly after the incident, this fell short of the apology demanded and high-level visits by American officials were postponed to avoid further tension. Following Khobragade's effective expulsion from the US, India asked Washington to withdraw a member of the diplomatic security service. Amid public outrage, politicians, officials and commentators repeatedly said that India's pride and soveriegnty were at stake. In recent days both Washington and Delhi have adopted a more conciliatory stance and a senior US diplomat met India's ambassador to the United States on Tuesday with the aim of repairing damage to bilateral ties. William Burns, deputy secretary of state, hosted a "productive" lunch meeting with Indian Ambassador S Jaishankar, a statement from the US state department said. Simultaneously Indian press reported meetings between top officials of each nation's security services. The return to India of priceless missing 10th century statues seized by US customs officers is also being seen as a “peace offering”. Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York, was arrested on 12 December and accused of paying her housekeeper, who had been flown in from India, substantially less than the US minimum wage, forcing her to work 15 hour days seven days a week and lying to US visa officers about the salary to be paid to the 42-year-old woman. The charges against Khobragade, who has denied all wrongdoing, mean that the mother of two cannot return to the US, where her US-born husband and children remain, without fear of arrest. The diplomat's US lawyer argues that his client's accreditation as a member of India's mission to the United Nations, granted by the state department as part of a deal allowing her to leave the country, gives her absolute immunity from prosecution, even for incidents that allegedly occurred before her accreditation. Officials at the US state department have said they do not believe her immunity is retroactive. Analysts say that deep goodwill between India and the US remains despite the breakdown over recent weeks. But though steadily improving since a nadir in the 1970s, relations have long been rocky. Despite co-operation on a wide range of issues including counterterrorism, regional security and defence there remains deep suspicion of Washington in Delhi. Many US officials see India as a difficult partner. Critics accuse Obama of failing to pay sufficient attention to ties with a country viewed as a key potential strategic counterbalance to China and an engine to boost the US economy, while American hopes of building a more robust business relationship with India have run into bureaucratic and political hurdles. The arrest of Khobragade touches a range of sensitivities in India. Almost all middle-class households in India employ at least one, and often several, members of staff who will undertake tasks from cleaning and cooking to childcare and driving. With few Indian diplomats paid wages that would allow them to legally employ local staff to perform such functions in postings in the west, the practice has long been for Indian workers to be flown out and paid rates that, if illegal in the US and elsewhere, would be generous at home. In the aftermath of the Khobragade affair Indian officials are mulling a plan to put diplomats' domestic servants on the government payroll. However politicians will be concerned about public reaction at a time when anger at India's embedded “VIP culture” of privilege is under scrutiny. There have been several previous incidents involving senior Indian diplomats in the US and domestic staff brought from India. In 2011 the Indian consul general, Prabhu Dayal, was accused by his maid of forced labour and sexual harassment, charges he called "complete nonsense" and that were later dropped. A year earlier a US judge recommended that an Indian diplomat and her husband pay a maid nearly $1.5m in compensation for being forced to work without pay and suffering "barbaric treatment" in their luxury Manhattan apartment. Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |