US adamant, not to drop charges against Devyani

Saturday, 21/12/2013

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20131221/main1.htm

The US government has no intention of dropping charges against Indian diplomat against Deputy Consul General in New York Devyani Khobragade accused of lying on a US visa application for her maid, whom she allegedly grossly underpaid and overworked.

Marie Harf, State Department’s deputy spokeswoman, also said that in the event that Devyani Khobragade’s re-accreditation to the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations is approved, full diplomatic immunity would only apply from the day on which she is officially confirmed to her new post and not be retroactive.

Harf said any suggestion that the US is considering dropping the charges against Khobragade, India’s deputy consul general in New York, are not true.

Any suggestion that the State Department will press Preet Bharara, the Indian-American US attorney for the Southern District of New York, to drop the charges are also not true, she said. The complaint against Khobragade was filed by Mark J Smith, a special agent with the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, in the court of Debra Freeman, US Magistrate Judge in the Southern District of New York. The judge issued the warrant for Khobragade’s arrest.

Withdrawing the complaint is “not something that’s even being considered,” Harf told reporters at the State Department’s daily briefing on Thursday. “We take these allegations very seriously. We’re not in any way walking back from those allegations or the charges. Again, this is really a law enforcement issue.” Under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963, Khobragade as a consular officer, does not enjoy full diplomatic immunity and is only protected from arrest in the case of acts related to her official work.

The State Department’s handbook on “Diplomatic and Consular Immunity” states: “It should be emphasised that even at its highest level, diplomatic immunity does not exempt diplomatic officers from the obligation of conforming with national and local laws and regulations. Diplomatic immunity is not intended to serve as a licence for persons to flout the law and purposely avoid liability for their actions.”

Bharara, who has filed the charges against Khobragade, issued a stern statement on Wednesday in which he noted that Khobragade had not only allegedly broken US law, she had forced her maid, Sangeeta Richard, and the maid’s spouse to be a part of her scheme to lie to US government officials.

The government of India has sought to provide Khobragade full diplomatic cover by transferring her to the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations in New York. However, such a transfer would have to be approved by the State Department because the UN is located in the US.

Officials at the UN and the State Department say they have not received any official request for Khobragade’s re-accreditation. And Harf said diplomatic immunity would not be retroactive.

There’s a process: it goes to the UN Secretariat, comes to the US State Dept, everybody has to say yes. There’s a process, a bureaucratic process. And then, if a different diplomatic status is conferred, it’s conferred at that date... It’s not retroactive.

US State Department

We expect our diplomat to be given exactly the same courtesies that we extend to American diplomats or diplomat of any other country,

Sujatha Singh, foreign secretary

No formalities will be acceptable to us. They (US) should tender a clear apology... US has to understand that the world has changed, times have changed and India has changed,

Kamal Nath,  parliamentary affairs minister

The only question is what you do when something happens that is irksome, that is hurtful, that is unacceptable. We are going to find a solution. And I hope that we will find a solution.

Salman Khurshid,  external affairs minister