US: Hate crime trial against Indian student starts

The lawyer for an Indian student accused of spying on his roommate's homosexual tryst on Saturday said his client acted in a "childish and immature" manner.

The trial of 19-year-old Dharun Ravi, a former Rutgers University student, began in New Brunswick, New Jersey, with both sides making their opening statements.

Ravi has pleaded not guilty to charges of bias intimidation and invasion of privacy of his roommate Tyler Clementi, 18. He had used a webcam to spy on Clementi, who later jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge in September 2010.

The most serious count against him is bias intimidation, a hate crime, which carries a potential sentence of 10 years in prison. If convicted, Ravi could also face deportation to
India.

Ravi's lawyer Steven Altman told the court his client had no intentions of intimidating Clementi and neither did he have any dislike for gays.

"We do stupid things, we make mistakes, especially when we're young -- it doesn't mean we are hateful, we are bigoted or we are criminal," Altman said.

"In fact, Dharun never intimidated anyone. He never committed a hateful crime. He is not homophobic. He is not anti-gay," he said.

Altman stressed that Ravi was a young person just out of high school and is "a boy, childish, at times immature. He was 18."

Closing his 30-minute opening statement, Altman said Ravi is "not hateful. He is not a bigot. At 18, he didn't have enough experience in life to know about being gay or homosexuality. When we get done here, you are going to see he might be stupid at times, he is certainly not a criminal."

Prosecutors, however, countered this argument, saying Ravi acted on purpose and wanted to "brand Tyler as different from everybody else... as gay to set him up for contempt.

"The defendant's acts were not a prank, they were not an accident and they were not a mistake," First Assistant Prosecutor for Middlesex County Julia McClure told the jury in her opening statement.

"These acts were purposeful, they were intentional and they were planned. They were mean-spirited, they were malicious, and they were criminal. Those acts were meant to cross one of the most sacred boundaries of human privacy, engaging in private sexual human activity."

McClure said Ravi's conduct is not about him having to like his roommate's sexual orientation. "This is about Dharun Ravi having the decency to respect it and to respect Tyler's dignity and privacy and the defendant did not do that."

Altman argued that the spying through the webcam lasted just two to five seconds, and it showed nothing more than two men kissing.

"Nobody ever broadcast anything. Nobody transmitted anything. Nobody recorded anything. Nobody reproduced any image of anything," Altman said.

Altman stressed Ravi never harassed or ridiculed his roommate, and nor did he say "anything bad" about Clementi. He added that Ravi thought Clementi was a "nice guy. He never had a problem with him."

Parents of both Clementi and Ravi were present in court for the first day of trial. A key witness in the case will be Molly Wei, Ravi's friend who had joined him in spying on
Clementi. Wei was also charged in the case initially but the charges were dropped after she agreed to cooperate and testify in the case.

Another key witness could be the man, identified so far only as 'MB', who was with Clementi in his room.

Altman said Ravi was not invading anyone's privacy as he was watching his own room through the web cam. "It's Dharun's room. I can't emphasise that enough," he said. "That's where he lives."

McClure said Ravi was "motivated by the fact that Tyler and his guest, who was a male, were homosexual." She said Ravi "was not too happy" when he had found out his roommate was gay.

A Rutgers student, Cassandra Cicco, testified during the trial and said she did see the webcast but there was nothing more graphic than kissing.

Cicco added that Ravi told her he wanted to use his webcam to see if his roommate was gay but he did not seem to have a problem with homosexuality.

The trial is expected to last about 3-4 weeks. The case has generated nationwide interest and sparked off intense debate over cyber-bullying and treatment of young gays and lesbians by society.

Ravi has rejected a plea deal that would have kept him out of jail but enroll for 600 hours of community service. Ravi has maintained he had never intended to intimidate Clementi because of his sexual orientation.

Image: Dharun Ravi | Photograph: Paresh Gandhi/Rediff.com