Devyani Khobragade, who had been strip-searched when arrested, left the country by plane on Thursday night after being charged by a federal grand jury with visa fraud and making false statement, a senior US official said. She is accused of fraudulently obtaining a work visa for her New York housekeeper.
An official in Washington, who spoke on the condition of anonymity said, the US accepted India's request to accredit her to the United Nations, which confers broader immunity than that which had applied as a consular official. It would be almost unprecedented for the US to deny such a request unless the diplomat were a national security risk.
The US asked the government of India to waive the immunity, but it refused, so the US then "requested her departure" from the country, the official said.
At a court hearing on Thursday, US District Judge Shira A Scheindlin was told by Khobragade's lawyer, Daniel Arshack, that he had told his client not to board a flight on Thursday afternoon until he had informed the judge presiding over her case that she had diplomatic immunity and had been ordered by the Department of State to leave.
The judge said it seemed odd that bail conditions continued to contain language that Khobragade could not leave New York when the Department of State had ordered her to do so.
"If she wants to go from India to China or something, it is not anybody's business right now. To say you may not travel outside the Southern District is kind of silly at this point," the judge said. "They have ordered her out and agreed she has diplomatic immunity now."
The judge said Khobragade could be arrested and made to answer the indictment if she returned to the US without diplomatic immunity.
Arshack said Khobragade was "pleased to be returning to her country."
Authorities say Khobragade claimed to pay her Indian maid $4,500 per month but gave her far less than the US minimum wage. The indictment said Khobragade had made multiple false representations to US authorities, or caused them to be made, to obtain a visa for a personal domestic worker. She planned to bring the worker to the US in September 2012 when she worked at the Consulate General of India in New York, according to the indictment.
Her arrest last month sparked outrage in India after revelations that she was strip-searched and put in a cell with other detainees before being released on $250,000 bail.
The maid, Sangeeta Richard, said on Thursday that she had decided to come to the US to work for a few years to support her family and then return to India.
"I never thought that things would get so bad here, that I would work so much that I did not have time to sleep or eat or have time to myself," she said in a statement released by the anti-trafficking group Safe Horizon.
She tried to return to India because of how she'd been treated, she said, but her request was denied.
"I would like to tell other domestic workers who are suffering as I did - you have rights and do not let anyone exploit you," she said.
Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York, has maintained her innocence.
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