Indian Origin Man Freed After 43 Years, Now Faces Deportation

After spending 43 years in prison on being convicted for a murder he did not commit, Indian-origin Pennsylvanian man, Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam, has been freed but soon he began facing a new trouble, the threat of deportation to India, about which he does not know anything.

Soon as he walked out of the jail, he was arrested by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who were waiting to act on a decades-old deportation order. This led to a major protest by his family demanding the release of the 64-year-old man who spent his entire adult life behind bars, for a crime he never committed.

The deportation order has been issued because of a drug conviction that he was involved in his youth. When Subu was 19, he had pleaded guilty to intent to distribute LSD. He was not deported as he was serving a life sentence.

Vedam was arrested in 1982 on charges of murdering his friend, 19-year-old Thomas Kinser in Pennsylvania. In 1983, he was convicted and sentenced to life without parole. Subu maintained he was innocent but his appeals were denied and he had to languish in jail.

Kinser’s body was found in a sinkhole near State College, and police named Vedam, his former high school classmate, as the accused, as he was the last person seen with Kinser.

In 2022, new pieces of evidence were found that the bullet wound in Kinser’s skull was too small for the gun that they had earlier thought was the murder weapon. The four-decades old prison term made Vedam become the longest-serving exoneree in Pennsylvania history, and one of the longest-serving in the US.

Vedam is a permanent US resident who came from India when he was nine months old.

Subu’s spokesperson Mike Truppa said that the move of the ICE officials completely blindsided his family because he does not know India. There might be some nominal relations in India but his entire family, all of his family relationships, are here and in Canada, he said.

During his prison term, Vedam has achieved significant academic milestones. Reportedly, he created literacy programs, helped inmates earn diplomas, and he completed three degrees through correspondence, all with magna cum laude honours.

His legal team has filed a motion to reopen his immigration case, and a petition to halt his deportation while it is pending.