India: report proves that evidence against Fr. Swamy was false

By Vatican News staff reporter

A US based digital forensic firm has confirmed that the accusation of sedition against late Jesuit Father Stan Swamy was based on false evidence.

According to the results of an investigation commissioned by his defence lawyers to the “Arsenal Consulting” based in Boston,  the 84-year-old Indian priest and social activist who died July 5, 2021, as an under trail prisoner while undergoing treatment at the Holy Family Hospital in Mumbai,  was framed after hacking into his computer hard drive and planting incriminating documents as evidences to implicate him.

The arrest in 2020

Father Swamy had been arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the federal anti-terror agency, on October 8 2020 in his residence in Ranchi, capital of Jharkhand State, along with other 16 people, on charges of having planned and executed the violence in the Bhima Koregaon area of Maharashtra on January 1 2018 in which one person was killed and many others injured. They were  also accused of cooperating with outlawed Maoist rebels and conspiring against the State.

Fr. Swamy had always refuted the charges. However, the elederly priest was denied bail several times, despite his age,  poor health conditions and having contracted COVID-19 in prison. He was admitted to hospital following an order from the Bombay High Court after his condition deteriorated  and his effort to get bail for treatment failed.

Investigators claimed they  had serious evidence against him. The new findings indicate that this evidence was false and that he was framed.

A social activist

Fr. Swamy  had worked for poor tribal (Adivasi) and other impoverished people in Jharkhand and other places in his five-decade-long priestly ministry. After his arrest many people and Church organizations in India and abroad campaigned for his release.

His  death in custody was roundly condemned worldwide, including in the British Parliament, by the US State Department, and the UN.