Court allows detention of criminal immigrants

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters): A divided U.S. Supreme Court on April 29 upheld a law requiring that legal immigrants who commit certain crimes in this country be detained in prison while awaiting their deportation hearings.

By a 5-4 vote, the high court sided with the U.S. Justice Department and rejected a constitutional challenge to a 1996 law that provides for detention of criminal immigrants during deportation proceedings.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist said for the majority that the U.S. Congress adopted the law with justified concern that immigrants who are released may commit other crimes or may skip their hearings, remaining at large in the U.S. unlawfully. He said in the 20-page opinion that detention was a constitutionally valid aspect of the process, even without a finding that the immigrant would be unlikely to show up for the deportation hearing.

Rehnquist said the government can detain immigrants during the “brief period” needed for deportation proceedings. He said detention lasted about 45 days in the vast majority of cases and about five months in the minority of cases when the immigrant appealed.

The ruling was a setback for civil liberties groups, which argued the law gave the government unprecedented detention powers.




Trial begins in murder of Khajala, 3 others

By Arvind Padmanabhan

Larme Price, a resident of New York City who has been charged with a 25-count indictment, including first-degree murder of a grocery store owner of Indian origin, has pleaded not guilty before the Kings County Supreme Court during a hearing on May 1, a spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney told News India-Times.

Sukhjit Khajala, an immigrant from India and owner of a convenience store in Brooklyn, and John Freddy, an Indo-Guyanese resident of Queens, were among the four alleged victims of Price, the New York Police Department had said earlier.

The police also said that Price had confessed during interrogation that he had killed them out of revenge for 9/11 because he thought these people were of Arab origin.

“Kings County District Attorney has time till Aug. 29 whether or not to seek death penalty for the defendant,” the spokesman for the DA’s office said.

“The documents filed before the court say that during interrogation, the suspect had confessed to his crime before our detectives,”



British detectives head to India for murder probe

London (Reuters): British detectives were to travel to northwest India as part of their probe into the rape and murder of a student who was found dead last month.

Officers from Hampshire police were flying to the Punjab on April 30 to liaise with their Indian counterparts and Interpol over the murder of 17-year-old Hannah Foster, a police spokeswoman said.

Officers from Hampshire police were flying to the Punjab on April 30 to liaise with their Indian counterparts and Interpol over the murder of 17-year-old Hannah Foster, a police spokeswoman said.

Foster was found dead in undergrowth in the southern English city of Southampton on March 16. The police believe she had been abducted as she walked home after a night out with friends.

“The purpose of this visit is to brief our Indian colleagues as fully as possible and to identify if there are any inquiries that we can undertake in Britain which may assist in their search for the suspect,” detective superintendent Alan Betts said in a statement. Betts said he could provide no further details about nature of the investigation in India, or who the suspect was. The detectives were expected to stay in India for a week.