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A Pennsylvania man who was recently exonerated after spending more than four decades behind bars has now been taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and faces possible deportation to India.
Earlier this month, Centre county’s district attorney dismissed murder charges against 64-year-old Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam. However, shortly after his exoneration, Vedam was detained by Ice based on a 1988 deportation order tied to his now-vacated convictions.
More than 40 years ago, Vedam was convicted of the murder of Tom Kinser, a 19-year-old college student who went missing from State College in 1980. Kinser’s body was discovered nine months later in a wooded area with a bullet wound in his skull.
Kinser and Vedam were former classmates and had lived together briefly as roommates. On the day Kinser disappeared, Vedam asked for a ride. Kinser’s car was later found parked in its usual spot, though no one saw it being returned. Vedam, who was born in India and arrived in the US at nine months old, was charged with Kinser’s murder and had his passport and green card seized by authorities. He was also denied bail as he was labeled a “foreigner likely to flee”.
In 1983, Vedam was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. A year later, Vedam received an additional sentence of two and a half to five years for a drug offense as part of a plea deal that was to be served simultaneously with his life sentence.
While in prison, Vedam maintained his innocence of the murder charges and continued to appeal against his conviction on circumstantial evidence. In 2021, new evidence in Kinser’s murder case surfaced, leading to Vedam’s exoneration earlier this month. The Centre county district attorney also announced it will not seek a new trial against Vedam, USA Today reported.
However, upon his exoneration, Vedam was taken into custody by Ice. In a statement to the Miami Herald, the agency accused Vedam of being a “a career criminal with a rap sheet dating back to 1980,” adding that he is “also a convicted controlled substance trafficker.”
Speaking to USA Today, Vedam’s lawyer Ava Benach said: “Subu has lived in the US since he was a nine-month-old infant when he and his family arrived as lawful permanent residents of the United States … He was still a lawful permanent resident, and his application for citizenship had been accepted, when he was arrested in 1982.”
Highlighting Vedam as Pennsylvania’s longest-incarcerated prisoner to be exonerated, Benach emphasized that Vedam “forfeited four decades of his life to a prison sentence for a murder he didn’t commit” and should therefore be given the opportunity to rebuild his life in the US, USA Today reported.
Vedam’s niece, Zoë Miller-Vedam, echoed similar sentiments to the outlet, saying: “All we want is for him to be home with us and to be able to move forward in life.”
Vedam is being held at the Moshannon Valley processing center, an immigration detention facility in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, as his family awaits an update on his deportation case.
English (US)