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News Topical, Digital Desk : Indian-born Subramaniam Vedam had to wait more than four decades to be cleared of the alleged murder of his friend Thomas Kinser in 1980. However, he also spent 43 years in prison.
He was scheduled to be released from prison in Pennsylvania this month. But fate may have had other plans. 64-year-old Vedam, who legally immigrated to the United States from India at the age of nine months, now faces another difficult legal battle.
The sentence was quashed in August.
Vedam was convicted twice of murder, despite a lack of witnesses or a motive. However, in August, a judge overturned his conviction after his lawyers discovered new evidence that prosecutors had never disclosed. When Vedam's sister was preparing to bring him home on October 3, he was detained under a 1999 deportation order.
However, amid the Trump administration's massive deportation campaign, Vedam's lawyers will have to convince the immigration court that his 1980s drug conviction shouldn't outweigh the years he wrongly spent in prison. For a time, immigration law allowed those who had reformed their lives to seek such a waiver. Vedam was never able to do so because of his murder conviction at the time.
'A man who has suffered a great injustice'
"He's a man who suffered a tremendous injustice. He didn't just sit idle in prison for 43 years. He had a wonderful prison experience," said immigration lawyer Eva Benach. Vedam earned multiple degrees while in prison and taught hundreds of fellow inmates. His lawyers hope the immigration judge will consider his entire case. Vedam remains in custody at the 1,800-bed US Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in central Pennsylvania.
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