RENO, Nev. (Diya TV) — An Indian citizen who was granted asylum in the U.S. and lived in northern Nevada has pleaded guilty to conspiring to plot a terror strike in the Punjab region of his home nation of India, federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday.
Balwinder Singh, 42, pleaded guilty in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks in Reno to conspiracy to provide material support and resources to terrorists, a felonious crime that can get him up to 15 years in federal prison and a deportation.
Singh’s attorney, Michael Kennedy, said the plea deal is pending Hicks’ approval and the dismissal of an indictment that could have gotten Singh life in a federal prison. The indictment accused Singh of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, four counts of falsifying an immigrant document, immigration fraud and unlawful production of an identification document.
“Mr. Singh is pleased that the indictment, if this is accepted, will be dismissed and that the lesser charge puts this behind him,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy further noted that a clause in the plea agreement would allow Singh to ask to be sent to a third country, not India, under the U.S. Convention Against Torture.
U.S. Attorney General Daniel G. Bogden in Nevada, FBI Special Agent in Charge Aaron Rouse in Las Vegas and top U.S. Justice Department national security prosecutor Mary McCord said in a statement that Singh pleaded guilty to planning to send a terrorist operative to India in the fall of 2013 to commit a terror attack – “likely an assassination or maiming of an Indian governmental official.”
The final target was to be determined during a meeting of the assembled powers in South Asia, the statement added.
The indictment alleged that the conspiracy’s origins predated 1997, the year Singh obtained asylum in San Francisco using a false identity. He obtained false identification documents in the U.S. to enable him to elude Indian authorities when traveling back to his home country, the indictment added.
He also was accused of telephoning and wiring money to co-conspirators in India for the purchase of weapons and of traveling to Pakistan, India and other countries for meetings to plan terrorist acts.
Investigators also apparently listened to telephone conversations in May 2012, when Singh allegedly provided instructions to an unidentified man about making an explosive device. The FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force in northern Nevada was credited with investigating the case.
