HYDERABAD: In a world which beliefs in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, deceased Srinivas Kuchibhotla’s wife has set an example of compassion and mercy during the trial of her husband’s murderer.
The accused, a US Navy veteran, was on Tuesday awarded three consecutive life sentences for killing Hyderabad resident Kuchibhotla and wounding two others at a suburban Kansas City bar last year. He escaped death penalty after Kuchibhotla’s widow issued a statement against it.
Adam Purinton of Kansas killed 32-year-old Kuchibhotla, and wounded two others, including another Indian Alok Madasani at Austins Bar & Grill in Olathe, Kansas, in 2017. Earlier this year, he pleaded guilty in federal court to hate crime and firearm offences.
In a statement Attorney General Jeff Sessions said, “The crimes at issue in this case are detestable. The defendant acted with clear premeditation in murdering one man, and attempting to murder a second man, simply because of their race, religion, and national origin.
As a result, a promising young life has been tragically cut short, and other lives have been filled with suffering.”The sentences handed down in federal court on Tuesday will run consecutively to another life sentence of 53-year-old Purinton previously received for first-degree murder in Johnson County District Court.
Sessions said in the statement that while the “irreparable harm” that Purinton has done cannot be undone, “some measure of justice for the victims’ families has been achieved.”
Although Purinton was liable to receiving death penalty under US federal law, a written statement by Kuchibhotla’s widow Sunayana Dumala which was read out in the court, said that her family did not want that.
“Use the time that is being given to you to educate yourself and inform others who are still out in the open and stop them from killing innocent people as you did - choosing violence over kindness,” Dumala read out the statement addressing Purinton in the court.