Subu Vedam, the Indian-origin man, who was arrested by the ICE minutes after his release after 43 years of imprisonment in a case in which he was wrongly convicted, will have to wait longer for his final release as the ICE has so far not responded positively to his case. “He (Vedam) has provided no evidence nor argument to show he has been diligent in pursuing his rights as it pertains to his immigration status,” Katherine B Frisch, an assistant chief counsel, in a brief, in a recent update of the case that has now become a campaign for justice. Vedam was arrested by the ICE, citing that he lost his citizenship in the US, but Vedam’s family hopes that immigration judges will consider the totality of his case, as he spent 43 years in jail for a murder that he did not commit. But ICE said the clock ran out years ago. Subu’s sister Saraswathi Vedam said her brother remains patient. “He, more than anybody else, knows that sometimes things don’t make sense,” she said. “You have to just stay the course and keep hoping that truth and justice and compassion and kindness will win.”
10 things to know about Subu Vedam case
- Subu Vedam was arrested when he was 19 on charges of murdering his friend and roommate, Tom Kinser. Vedam was the last person to be seen with Kinser. It was 1982, two years after Kinser was murdered.
- In 1983, Vedam was convicted and sentenced to life without parole.
- In 1988, when he was in jail, his family received a deportation order based on his convictions for murder and also a drug offence.
- In fact, Subu was detained on drug charges in the first place and later charged with murder. Police reached Subu as Subu asked Kinser for a ride to Lewisburg to buy drugs and that was the last time Kinser was seen.
- Subu maintained his innocence in the murder case and in 2022, his legal team found out that he was wrongfully convicted because there was a major loophole.
- The gun that Subu had, based on which he was convicted, did not match the gunshot that was found on Kinser’s body.
- On October 2, the murder charges were dropped against Vedam and he was released a day later.
- As soon as he was released, he was detained by the ICE who acted on the 1988 deportation order.
- Subu Vedam remains in ICE custody in Pennsylvania and ICE opposes the effort of his team to plea to the immigration judges to consider the totality of the case.
- Subu Vedam is now 63 years old. He earned several degrees in prison. His family wants him to live freely in the US and not to be deported to India.
The Vedams were among the first Indian families in the area known as “Happy Valley,” where his father had come as a postdoctoral fellow in 1956. An older daughter was born in State College, but Subu was born when the family was back in India in 1961. The family returned to State College before his first birthday and when he was nine months old, and became the family that welcomed new members of the Indian diaspora to town. Subu’s sister Saraswathi is a midwifery professor in Vancouver, British Columbia.
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