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Family, Friends Rally Around Basuta

N K Raghunathan in San Diego

One of the most sensational cases in recent times California will be resurrected again next month when Judge William Kennedy will sentence Manjit Basuta for the death of a child in her custody. Fortyfour-year-old Basuta, the mother of three, could be sentenced to 25 years, with an order that she serves most of her sentence.

When a jury found Basuta guilty on June 13 in the shaking to death of baby Christopher Oliver Smith at a day care nursery run by her, judge Kennedy revoked her $1.5 million bail.

The prosecution had convinced him that Basuta, an India-born British citizen, had lied in getting a green card -- and that she could use fraudulent means to get out of the country.

Within hours of the June 13 verdict her siblings, who live in England, friends and neighbors began efforts for the appeal case. They are collecting more testimonials from people who have known her, and appealing for donations to fight the appeal.

The family reportedly spent over $125,000 in the first case and they believe they will need more than $150,000 for the appeal.

"Appeal lawyers want the money up front," says Kishor Doshi, a self-employed engineer, who is among the many who are convinced that Basuta is innocent. Like many people who are rallying around Basuta, he feels that she would be a free woman today if the court had admitted certain evidence.

"Judge Kennedy did not allow us to pursue the questioning of Mother Audrey Amral about her ex-husband's accusation, registered at the Santa Fe police department that Audrey had the habit of shaking the baby when angry," says a pamphlet produced by Harbhajan S Grewal, brother of Manjit Basuta.

"When I heard about the case over a year ago, I thought she would be cleared," says Doshi, adding that he forgot about the case till the judgment came. Doshi, who had never met the Basuta family before the judgment, got in touch with Grewal, who is based in Birmingham, and Manjit Singh, her husband.

"Many of the neighbors who had pledged their homes for the bail continue helping her," he said. "Many of them are not Indians; there is, for instance, a Japanese family, and there are many American families," he said, adding, "Manjit Basuta is well-regarded in the community."

But the jury thought otherwise.

The jury accepted medical evidence and the testimony of a housekeeper who said she saw Basuta shake Oliver Smith out of anger when he refused to come to her to have his diaper changed. The defense unsuccessfully played up to the jury housekeeper Cristina Carillo's first report to the police.

The defense maintained throughout the trial that the Carillo's first story was the true version of how Oliver died and that the fall -- resulting from the child being pushed to the ground by another child -- aggravated an older head injury and proved fatal. The child died on March 18, a day after it became unconscious. Carillo changed her story after three days.

Carillo told the jurors that she had lied because Basuta had threatened to have her deported.

Manjit Basuta's family asserts that Christina Carillo changed her story 12 times in discussion with the police and the prosecution and that the prosecution could not explain the bruises on the baby's head.

"There are too many unexplained things in the prosecution case," says Harbhajan Singh Grewal. "Our sister is innocent. She deserves to be freed to be with her husband and children."

For more information, contact H S Grewal, (619) 755-2124 or Kishor Doshi, (619) 454-3144/fax, 454 0831/Eileen Butler, (619) 792-8910.

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