{Devyani Khobragade, an Indian diplomat whose recent arrest in New York stirred outrage in her home country, was allowed to leave the United States on Thursday after being indicted on two criminal charges related to her housekeeper.}<\/p>\n
Khobragade, who was India’s deputy consul-general in New York, was arrested on Dec. 12 and indicted Thursday by a grand jury for visa fraud and making false statements about how much she paid her housekeeper.<\/p>\n
The US State Department had asked India\u2019s government to waive Khobragade\u2019s immunity so that she could be prosecuted, a US government official said on the condition of anonymity, but the request was refused. The State Department then told her she had to leave the country.<\/p>\n
At a court hearing late Thursday, Khobragade\u2019s lawyer, Daniel Arshack, told US District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin that he had asked his client not to leave the country until he had informed the judge presiding over her case that she had diplomatic immunity.<\/p>\n
Arshack said Khobragade, whose nighttime flight from Kennedy Airport was delayed a couple of hours before finally taking off, was \u201cpleased to be returning to her country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHer head is held high,\u201d the lawyer said. \u201cShe knows she has done no wrong and she looks forward to assuring that the truth is known.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allegations of mistreatment<\/p>\n
Authorities say Khobragade claimed to pay her Indian maid $4,500 per month but gave her far less than the US minimum wage. The indictment said Khobragade had made multiple false representations to US authorities, or caused them to be made, in order to obtain a visa for a personal domestic worker. <\/p>\n
Her arrest set off protests in India after it surfaced that she had been handcuffed and strip-searched. The dispute soured broader US-India relations, leading to sanctions against American diplomats in New Delhi and the postponement of visits to India by senior US officials and another by a US business delegation.<\/p>\n
The maid, Sangeeta Richard, said in her first public statements Thursday that she had decided to come to the US to work for a few years to support her family and then return to India.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never thought that things would get so bad here, that I would work so much that I did not have time to sleep or eat or have time to myself,\u201d she said in a statement released by the anti-trafficking group Safe Horizon.<\/p>\n
She tried to return to India because of how she\u2019d been treated, she said, but her request was refused.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to tell other domestic workers who are suffering as I did \u2013 you have rights and do not let anyone exploit you,\u201d said Richard, who has been vilified in India and accused of blackmailing her employer.<\/p>\n
Khobragade has denied the accusations.<\/p>\n
In a letter to the judge on Thursday, prosecutors said there was no need for an arraignment because Khobragade had \u201cvery recently\u201d been given diplomatic immunity status; they also mistakenly said she\u2019d already left the United States.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for prosecutors later clarified that the mix-up came because the State Department advised that she was to have left the country Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n
The charges will remain pending until she can be brought to court to face them, through a waiver of immunity or her return to the US without immunity status, the letter from the office of US Attorney Preet Bharara said.<\/p>\n
Arshack said he was pleased the State Department had recognized Khobragade\u2019s diplomatic immunity.<\/p>\n
He said the confusion over whether his client had left the country was \u201cemblematic of the series of blunders which has contributed to the false charges brought against her.\u201d He said Khobragade did not make any false statements and paid her domestic worker what she was entitled to be paid.<\/p>\n
(FRANCE 24 with AP, REUTERS)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Devyani Khobragade, an Indian diplomat whose recent arrest in New York stirred outrage in her home country, was allowed to leave the United States on Thursday after being indicted on two criminal charges related to her housekeeper.} Khobragade, who was India’s deputy consul-general in New York, was arrested on Dec. 12 and indicted Thursday by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000049874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[334],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-12044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe-reporter"],"bylines":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":{"id":2000049874,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12044.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12044.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12044.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12044.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12044.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12044.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000049874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12044"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=12044"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=12044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}