Sai Varshith Kandula (20) waved a Nazi flag after crashing the truck near the White House.
Indian national Sai Varshith Kandula was sentenced to eight years in jail on Thursday for an attempted attack on the White House with a rented truck on May 22, 2023. Prosecutors said that the attack was inspired by his fascination with Nazi ideology.
Kandula pleaded guilty on May 13 last year to a charge of wilful injury or depredation of US property. He was sentenced to three years of supervised release after his prison term; the court ordered him to pay around $57,000 in restitution.
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According to the Department of Justice, the 20-year-old wanted to “eliminate the democratic process in America and replace the government with a Nazi-style dictatorship.”
Residing in Missouri, Kandula had nearly struck two people standing next to a park bench when he steered a U-Haul box truck onto a sidewalk and towards metal bollards that prevent vehicles from entering Lafayette Square, north of the White House.
He then retrieved a Nazi flag from his backpack after the crash. No one was injured in the attack.
Scott Rosenblum, Kandula’s defence attorney, said that the accused was suffering from schizophrenia and overwhelmed by delusional thoughts, including his belief that a “reptilian race had installed a puppet regime to operate the US.” Rosenblum also said that Kandula was diagnosed with schizophrenia after his arrest.
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According to reports, the Chandranagar (Hyderabad) born had planned the attack weeks before. He took a flight from St. Louis to Washington, DC, hours before the crash. He then rented the truck in Virginia’s Herndon roughly three hours before he crashed it into the barriers. The truck backed up in reverse, then lurched forward, striking the metal barriers a second time which disabled the truck.
After getting arrested on the spot, he told investigators that he purchased the swastika flag because “Nazis have a great history.”
Kandula reportedly caused $4,322 in damage to the National Park Service, including costs for repairing the metal barriers to their original condition and ensuring structural soundness, oil and chemical removal, spill clean-up, and disposal of fluids from the crashed U-Haul, said the Department of Justice.
