HAMMOND | The war in Iraq and Internet blogs were two of the topics that lawyers and a judge used Monday to question 15 jurors selected in the federal case against Vikram Buddhi.
Buddhi is charged with 11 crimes for posting messages on Internet discussion forums that exhorted Iraqis and others to kill President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and their wives and to blow up American infrastructure.
Opening statements in the five-day trial are scheduled to begin this morning in U.S. District Court in Hammond.
Buddhi is an Indian national who was legally in the United States while attending engineering classes at Purdue University in West Lafayette for more than 10 years.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Philip Benson said Buddhi's comments show he harbors a deep hatred for America's leaders and is a danger to society. As evidence of guilt, Benson intends to show that Buddhi attempted to hide his identity by using other students' computer addresses.
Buddhi says the online comments came during Internet debates, which are known for turning more vitriolic than ordinary debates. He maintains the comments were intended as a protest of the war, and not "true threats" that he believed anyone would carry out.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge James Moody asked jurors whether they could remain impartial toward someone whose views of the Iraq war were different from theirs. One man was dismissed when he said he could not.
Jurors were asked about their military service. At one point, eight of the 15 jurors said either they or their family members had served in the armed forces. A few of them later were dismissed.
None of the jurors said they harbored prejudice toward someone born in another country.
Buddhi's attorney, John Martin, has raised the issue in pretrial motions because some of the "crude" online comments are directed toward "Anglo-Saxons," many of whom were likely to comprise the jury pool.
Asked about Internet use, only one of the initial 15 jurors said he had ever read an Internet blog. Moody even said he did not know what a blog was.
