Indian sentenced to 8 yrs for attack on White House

Indian national Sai Varshith Kandula, 20, on Thursday was sentenced to eight years for an attempted attack on the White House with a rented truck on May 22, 2023.

The attack aimed to overthrow the democratically elected American government in order to replace it with a dictatorship fuelled by Nazi ideology, the Department of Justice said.

Kandula had pleaded guilty on May 13, 2024 to a charge of willful injury or depredation of US property. Born in Chandanagar, India, he was a was a lawful permanent resident of the US with a green card. In addition to the prison term, District Court Judge Dabney L Friedrich ordered Kandula to serve three years of supervised release.

The Indian national flew on a commercial flight from St Louis, Missouri, to Washington DC on the afternoon of May 22, 2023. He stopped for food and gas, and then drove to Washington, DC, where he crashed into the barriers protecting the White House and the President’s Park.