Indian jailed for exporting banned US military goods to India

Sridhar Krishnaswami and Seema Hakhu Kachru

Washington/Houston, Jun 17 (PTI) An Indian American
businessman was sentenced to 35 months in jail and slapped a
USD 60,000 fine by a US court for shipping restricted military
technology to Indian government entities engaged in missiles
and fighter jet production and space programme.

Parthasarathy Sudarshan, 47, CEO of Cirrus Electronics,
will serve about 20 months because he has been in federal
prison since his arrest in March 2007, US District Court Judge
Ricardo Urbina ruled.

Sudarshan was convicted of acquiring electrical
components with applications in missile guidance and firing
systems in the US and supplying them to the Vikram Sarabhai
Space Centre and the Bharat Dynamics Ltd between 2002 and
2006, according to court documents.

He was also accused of acquiring microprocessors for the
Tejas, a fighter jet under development in India.

The judge said that Sudarshan broke the law and risked
putting nuclear weapon technology into the wrong hands.

"This didn't happen one time. It happened time after
time after time," Urbina said.

Sudarshan was originally charged with 15 counts of
violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and
the Arms Export Control Act as well as acting as an illegal
agent of a foreign government. He pleaded guilty to one charge
in March and the other allegations were dropped.

Sudarshan held himself out to be CEO of Cirrus that has
offices in South Carolina, Singapore and Bangalore.

His attorney had sought a sentence of time served citing
that most of the goods sold were of low technology with some
costing less than USD one a piece and that the entrepreneur
had been financially "wiped out".

Federal prosecutors sought up to four years in prison.

Before sentencing by the Washington court, Sudarshan
pleaded to the judge that he had come to the US for a better
life and to get a good education for his children.

"This (legal) process has been very difficult for me,"
Sudarshan told the court, and asked to be allowed to return
to his family.

Later, Urbina asked Sudarshan why he shipped prohibited
electronic components through Singapore to India.

Sudarshan replied that it happened, in part, because he
was ignorant of the law.

Urbina was not satisfied with the answer and asked
again.

Reid Weingarten, Sudarshan's attorney, tried to step in
but Urbina stopped him.

"I want to know it out of (Sudarshan's) mouth," Urbina
told Weingarten. "I want a clear, clean, direct explanation of
why Mr. Sudarshan did it."

Despite his March guilty plea, Sudarshan never really
acknowledged that he had broken the law.

Weingarten, in seeking a sentence of time already
served, said later that the equipment sold by Sudarshan's
company, Cirrus Electronics Ltd., was low-tech, with some
components costing less than USD one a piece.

It wasn't "fair" that the prosecutors accused Sudarshan
of endangering national security, he said.

"This was not a man who was out to harm the United
States," Weingarten said.

Weingarten convinced the Justice Department to
acknowledge that the value of goods illegally exported by
Sudarshan was about USD2.4 million, not the USD4.5 million
originally contained in court filings.