Washington:
Indian national Sai Varshith Kandula, 20, was sentenced to eight years on Thursday for attempting to attack the White House with a rented truck on May 22, 2023.
The attack aimed to overthrow the democratically elected US government and replace it with a dictatorship fueled by Nazi ideology, the Justice Department said.
Kandula had pleaded guilty on May 13, 2024, to one count of malicious wounding or depredation of U.S. property. He was born in Chandanagar, India, and was a lawful permanent resident of the US with a green card. In addition to the prison sentence, District Judge Dabney L ordered Friedrich 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, using a one-way ticket through another airport, according to court documents, and arrived at Dulles International around 6 p.m. Airport. 5:20 p.m., during which he rented a truck at 6:30 p.m.
He stopped to get food and gas and then drove to Washington, D.C., where he crashed into the barriers protecting the White House and President's Park at the intersection of H Street, Northwest and 16th Street, Northwest at 9:35 p.m. Kandula drove onto the sidewalk, causing pedestrians to run away. After hitting the barriers, the truck reversed and then shot forward, hitting the metal barriers a second time. The second impact disabled the truck, which began smoking from the engine compartment and leaking fluids.
Kandula then exited the vehicle and walked to the back of the truck. From a backpack he took a flag, a red-and-white banner measuring more than one meter by five meters with a Nazi swastika in the middle, and waved it. U.S. Park Police and U.S. Secret Service agents arrested Kandula at the scene and took him into custody, the Justice Department said.
According to the plea deal, at the time Kandula rammed the truck into the White House perimeter, he was trying to gain access to the White House to seize political power.
“Kandula's intention was to replace the democratically elected government with a dictatorship fueled by the ideology of Nazi Germany, and to take control of the United States himself. Kandula admitted to investigators that he would have arranged the assassination of the US president and others if necessary to achieve his goal. His actions were intended to influence the government's behavior through intimidation or coercion,” the report said.
According to the Justice Department, his actions caused $4,322 in damages to the National Park Service. This amount included the costs of restoring the metal bollards to their original condition and ensuring structural strength, removing oil and chemicals, cleaning up spills and draining fluids from the crashed U-Haul.
Kandula planned the attack for several weeks. Before renting the truck and crashing it on the White House grounds, he made several attempts to gain access to vehicles or armed guards. For example, on April 22, 2023, Kandula requested 25 armed guards and an armored convoy from a security company in Virginia, federal prosecutors said.
On May 4, 2023, Kandula attempted to contact several other companies in an attempt to rent a large commercial tractor-trailer truck, dump truck, or other large truck. Kandula failed to file charges for security guards or a semi-trailer or dump truck. Kandula had attempted to arrange the services of these guards and the use of large vehicles to carry out his crime against the US government, a press release said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)