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U.S. prosecutors again indict Indian diplomat Khobragade


    NEW YORK (Reuters) - A grand jury has returned a new indictment against Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade for visa fraud, two days after a U.S. federal judge dismissed a similar indictment because she had diplomatic immunity.

    Khobragade's arrest last December and subsequent strip search drew outrage in India, causing a major diplomatic rift that ended when the United States granted her diplomatic immunity and then requested her departure from the country in January.

    U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled on Wednesday that Khobragade, who was India's deputy consul-general in New York, had diplomatic immunity when she sought on January 9 to dismiss the indictment, and thus could not be prosecuted for allegedly underpaying her nanny.

    A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan said then that the ruling did not bar prosecutors from seeking a new indictment based on the same charges.

    (Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Chris Reese)