Click to play videoKochi: From a successful fashion designer to being labelled a serial rapist, Anand Jon has seen the best and the worst of days. But his mother Sashi Abraham has finally decided to speak up for her son and says he is a victim of racial discrimination and professional jealousy.
“There were a lot of racial slurs as Anand was brown. Now it’s a case between a brown boy and 20 white girls. So they just want to defend the girls,” Sashi says.
Speaking to the media for the first time, Anand's mother says she is desperately trying to raise a staggering Rs 23 crore to get her son out on bail from the downtown county prison in Los Angeles.
“I wish I had a plan to get him out. They are asking for an exorbitant bail amount like $5 million. Who can raise that kind of money and he is just a young boy, an Indian citizen who has gone there to study. I don’t have the money,” Sashi says.
Thirty-three-year-old Anand was arrested in March 2007 in Beverly Hills on rape and battery charges. Later as more charges piled up against the designer, he pleaded not guilty to more than 40 felony and misdemeanor counts including rape, sexual battery and committing a lewd act on a child.
Attributing the charges against her son to professional rivalry Anand's mother Sashi feels that the Beverly Hills Court and the downtown court in Los Angeles have denied him a fair trial.
“The prosecution never gave us a chance for preliminary hearing. They pulled the whole thing into a grand jury without the knowledge of the defence. Otherwise we could have cross-examined each and every complaining witness. We could have proved it was a bunch of lies, but we were never given the chance,” Sashi Abraham says.
The next hearing for Anand's bail plea comes up on October 25 in LA, his mother now hopes the Indian government will step in to help him. For Shashi and her family time is certainly running short.
Whether Anand is guilty or not is for the jury to find out. But what his mother pleads is for a free and fair trial, which she says will undoubtedly prove his innocence.
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