Father Stan Swamy was arrested for alleged ties to terrorist groups and died in prison in 2021. An American digital forensics firm released a report, which shows that a hacker planted multiple “incriminating documents” in the computer of activist-priest Father Stan Swamy’s computer. The report of the "Arsenal Consulting", a company based in Boston (USA), shows that the allegations against the Indian Jesuit were false. There was an alleged electronic correspondence between the priest and supposed Maoist leaders to make the case that he was part of an explosive conspiracy.
The company, contacted by lawyers commissioned by the Society of Jesus in India, says that 44 documents, including the so-called "letters to the Maoists", cited as evidence against Swamy, were implanted on his personal computer by a hacker who managed to access it (via a malware called NetWire) for about five years, from 2014 until 2019, when the PC was seized and examined by the Indian police.
The Indian Jesuit Cedric Prakash, who worked so hard in the last two years to defend Fr. Swamy, told Fides: "We knew Stan and were completely certain of his innocence and good faith. This is proof that Father Swamy was framed. Arrested on absurd charges of collaboration with terrorist groups, he died in custody at the age of 83, weakened by long and unjust imprisonment. Today we hand them over to the National Investigation Agency of India (NIA) so that investigations are carried out and mistakes are admitted. We demand the full rehabilitation of Father Swamy as a completely innocent person, even with a possible 'suo motu' ruling from the Supreme Court of India".
Fr Stan Swamy SJ, who was known for his long commitment to tribal people and their rights in the State of Jharkhand, spent almost nine months in prison before he died at the age of 84 in a Mumbai hospital on 5 July 2021 from COVID-19, which he contracted in detention.
Fr Swamy, along with 15 other jailed defendants, was on trial for instigating violence during a protest by Dalits on 1 January 2018 in a village in Maharashtra. The defendants say that Hindu nationalists provoked the clashes.
After making several requests for release, all turned down, Fr Swamy, who was already suffering from Parkinson's at the time of arrest, was eventually moved to a hospital in Mumbai, but by then his health was irrevocably compromised.
While the Boston-based forensic firm could not trace the identity of the hacker, it found that the same user targeted the computers of Wilson and Gandling, two other people arrested in connection with the BK16 case. The command and control servers and NetWire configurations are the same in all three hacking operations.
Sources: Asia News and Fides.org
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