HAMMOND | Vikram Buddhi will get the chance to explain to a jury of his peers in Hammond federal court why he urged the assassination of President George Bush in an on-line chatroom in 2005 and 2006.
Buddhi, an Indian national who was attending advanced engineering classes at Purdue's West Lafayette campus, has tried to get the indictment against him thrown out of court on several grounds. U.S. District Judge James Moody has rejected all of the attempts, clearing the way for the June 25 trial.
Buddhi is charged in an 11-count complaint filed in Hammond federal court with making threats against the president, the first lady and various administration officials, along with exhortations to target American infrastructure for bombing.
"It is now legal under international law to bomb key sites in the USA. Iraqis! Give Anglosaxons the tit reaction for the tat action of Bush and the Republicans," federal court records allege that Buddhi wrote in one posting.
The messages were posted on Yahoo! Finance messages boards on the Internet, though prosecutors say Buddhi attempted to conceal his actions by using someone else's digital identity.
Buddhi's federal public defender, John Martin, has argued that Buddhi's comments were protected speech under the First Amendment because they were intended as "political banter" in opposition to the Iraq War.
For example, on a message board pertaining to defense contractor Halliburton, Buddhi posted that "Bush is a President of Mass Destruction" and "should be electrocuted."
Martin's attorney compared it to a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case in which an 18-year-old war protestor told a crowd at the Washington Memorial, "If they ever make me carry a rifle, the first man I want to get in my sights is LBJ (President Johnson)." The court ruled the protester's comments were simply crude political speech and overturned his conviction.
Buddhi also argued that his indictment was too vague and that his exhortations for someone to "Kill GW Bush" and "Rape and Kill Laura Bush" were not "true threats" because Buddhi was not threatening to do it himself.
The judge rejected all of these arguments, saying the indictment was strong enough that a jury should decide whether Buddhi's threats of violence were illegal.
