Washington, April 3 (Agencies): The chief executive of a US electronics supply company and three other Indians employed in the firm have been charged with shipping closely guarded US computer technology to India for use in missiles and other weapon systems.
Federal prosecutors also identified but did not name “co-conspirator A”, an Indian government official located in Washington.
Cirrus Electronics founder Parthasarathy Sudarshan was arrested in South Carolina on March 23 and was ordered held without bail until his court appearance today. Also arrested was Mythili Gopal, the company’s international sales manager, who opened the Cirrus office in South Carolina in 2003. She was released and is due in court on April 17.
Two others were indicted and have not been arrested: A.K.N. Prasad, the head of Indian operations for Cirrus at its office in Bangalore, and Sampath Sundar, the company’s operations director who worked out of Singapore.
Although the “co-conspirator A” was not charged, prosecutors said he worked closely with Cirrus and discussed official government reimbursement for company expenses.
Sudarshan ordered computer equipment from US manufacturers using falsified documents about their destination, the federal prosecutors said. The parts were allegedly shipped to India through Cirrus offices in South Carolina and Singapore.
The prosecutors said that between 2003 and 2006, Sudarshan was buying the equipment for three Indian government agencies: the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, which researches spacecraft and ballistic missiles, Bharat Dynamics Ltd, a key agency in the nation’s guided missile programme, and the Aeronautical Development Establishment, which is developing the Tejas combat jet.
The US commerce department restricts exports to these agencies on national security grounds.
The equipment included heat-resistant memory chips, microprocessors, capacitors and semiconductors used in missile guidance systems and firing systems, according to a federal indictment unsealed recently.
Sudarshan and Gopal have been charged with export violations, international arms trafficking, being agents for a foreign government and conspiracy. Both are Indian nationals living legally in the US.
The indictment also describes co-ordination between Cirrus and Indian government officials.
Deputy spokesman of the state department, Tom Casey, has been quoted in a media report as saying that the indictment served by the FBI is an enforcement issue that began earlier than the efforts to reach the civilian nuclear deal and as such will not impact the initiative.
However, Congressman Edward Markey said that “if the Indian government has attempted to circumvent US export controls over sensitive missile technology, as is alleged in the indictment, then it has violated its explicit agreements to become a responsible international actor in the context of non-proliferation”.
“India has also long touted its strong military and space-launch co-operation with Iran, which raises the possibility that the sensitive US missile technologies India has misappropriated may wind up benefiting Tehran.
“This would be absolutely unacceptable, and it would be treated as such by Congress…” the Massachussetts lawmaker said in a statement.
The Bush administration, he said, “successfully pressed Congress to grant India a huge exception to US nuclear non-proliferation laws with the argument that India has strong non-proliferation credentials. However, if the allegations contained in this indictment are true, India has shown itself to be willing to violate US export controls in order to gain access to sensitive technologies”.
