Legal experts say the case marks an escalation in the administration\u2019s attacks on first amendment rights. Afghanistan war veterans who know him say the case against Mavalwalla appears unjust.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere\u2019s a guy who held a top secret clearance and was privy to some of the most sensitive information we have, who served in a combat zone,\u201d said Kenneth Koop, a retired colonel who trained the Afghan military and police during Mavalwalla\u2019s deployment. \u201cTo see him treated like this really sticks in my craw.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 11 June protest against Ice that led to Mavalwalla\u2019s arrest was confrontational, leaving a government van\u2019s windshield smashed and tires slashed, but Mavalwalla was not among the more than two dozen people arrested at the scene. More than a month passed before the FBI arrived at his door on 15 July.<\/p>\n
The 35-year-old, who used his GI Bill to earn a degree in sustainable communities from <\/strong>Sonoma State University, <\/strong>was set to move into a 3,000-sq-ft house that day, which he had bought with his girlfriend, a nurse and fellow Afghanistan war veteran, with the help of a loan backed by the Department of Veterans Affairs.<\/p>\n Mavalwalla\u2019s father, a retired US army intelligence officer with three bronze stars earned during tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, brought his truck for the occasion. He planned to move his son into a dream home in a bucolic, southern section of Spokane that was large enough to accommodate their blended family (Mavalwalla has one child; his girlfriend, Katelyn Gaston, has three) and solidify the couple\u2019s life together.<\/p>\n But at 6am the FBI knocked on Mavalwalla\u2019s door and they arrested him. Cell phone video<\/a> shot by Mavalwalla\u2019s father shows the veteran \u2013 tall, fit, with wire-rimmed glasses, tight ponytail and trim goatee \u2013 smiling in apparent disbelief, his hands shackled behind his back.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not how I planned to spend my moving day,\u201d Mavalwalla says, as agents search his pockets and force him into a black pickup truck. \u201cI\u2019m a military veteran. I\u2019m an American citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n At 3pm, Mavalwalla, who receives disability compensation for post traumatic stress disorder connected to his service in Afghanistan, appeared in federal court along with eight other people indicted in connection with a protest against an Ice transport that occurred a month earlier.<\/p>\n While the indictment alleges other protesters struck federal officers and let the air out of the tires of an Ice transport, Mavalwalla was not charged with obstruction or assault. Instead, he was charged<\/a> with \u201cconspiracy to impede or injure officers\u201d.<\/p>\n According to the indictment, Mavalwalla and his co-defendants \u201cphysically blocked the drive-way of the federal facility and\/or physically pushed against officers despite orders to disburse and efforts to remove them from the property\u201d.<\/p>\n Mavalwalla, who has no criminal record, pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n His family says Mavalwalla\u2019s actions were motivated by a commitment to non-violent protest, which traces back to the family\u2019s deep connection to the Indian independence leader, Mahatma Gandhi.<\/p>\n A one-minute video posted on Instagram <\/a>shows the army veteran briefly jostle with an officer whose face is covered by a ski mask and sunglasses. Mavalwalla then locks arms with other demonstrators to block the gate.<\/p>\n The conspiracy count carries a maximum penalty of six years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. He was released on his own recognizance while awaiting trial, with a judge even giving him permission to travel to Disneyland for a previously planned family vacation.<\/p>\n \u2018He\u2019s a test case to see how far they can go\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n The US attorney\u2019s office in Spokane, which brought the charges, declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation.<\/p>\n The indictment was handed down two days after career prosecutor Richard Barker, the acting US attorney for eastern Washington state, resigned. In a social post, Barker called his exit \u201ca very difficult decision\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI am grateful that I never had to sign an indictment or file a brief that I didn\u2019t believe in,\u201d he wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n The current acting US attorney, nominated for the permanent post by Donald Trump, is Pete Serrano, a former litigator for the Silent Majority Foundation, a conservative advocacy group. In February, Serrano filed an amicus brief <\/a>in support of Trump\u2019s executive order to end birthright citizenship, a position at odds with the 14th amendment. He has no prosecutorial experience and has described the 6 January 2021, US Capitol rioters as \u201cpolitical prisoners\u201d.<\/p>\n Patty Murray, a Democratic senator from Washington state, has pledged<\/a> to block his confirmation.<\/p>\n Legal experts say the conspiracy charges against Mavalwalla underscore the lengths the Trump administration will go to quash protests against Ice, giving the immigration agency a free hand as it steps up raids, adds agents and seeks to achieve the president\u2019s goal of 3,000 deportations per day.<\/p>\n So far, the Trump administration has primarily charged demonstrators for assault and obstruction, acts that typically involve a victim and an assailant. But a federal conspiracy charge<\/a> is a crime of intent. In this case, prosecutors would just have to prove that defendants agreed in concert to impede or injure an officer.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a test case to see how far they can go,\u201d said Luis Miranda, former chief spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security under President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n \u2018Honest, direct, polite and very trustworthy\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n The charges against Mavalwalla sent shockwaves through a tight community of veterans with connections forged in Afghanistan that intensified after the bungled August 2021 US withdrawal. The fall of Kabul to the Taliban brought them together again to evacuate Afghans who worked alongside the US military<\/a>.<\/p>\n After his arrest, Mavalwalla\u2019s commanding officer, Col Charles Hancock, who is retired, wrote on Facebook that he knew the trained crypto-linguist to be \u201chonest, direct, polite and very trustworthy\u201d and was \u201cdeeply concerned about the current state of affairs in our country\u201d.<\/p>\n Koop, the retired colonel, said Mavalwalla put the diplomatic connections he gained due to his security clearance at the disposal of Koop\u2019s translator, who escaped and otherwise might have been murdered by the Taliban. \u201cIt was no surprise to me that concern for the individual, human rights and safety would be right up Bajun\u2019s portfolio and mindset,\u201d Koop said.<\/p>\n As word spread that Mavalwalla knew how to rescue people in the frenetic days after the fall of Kabul, more people reached out.<\/p>\n When Erin Piper, community director at a church in Livonia, Michigan, learned that a relative of one of her son\u2019s friends had worked as a custodian on a US military base in Afghanistan, she called Mavalwalla to see if he could help bring over an extended family of aunts, uncles and siblings who had been left behind.<\/p>\n A military transport plane launches off while Afghans who cannot get into the airport to evacuate, watch and wonder while stranded outside, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on 23 August 2021. Photograph: Marcus Yam\/Los Angeles Times\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Mavalwalla sprung into action, locating safe houses for 20 members of the former custodian\u2019s extended family and at least a dozen other Afghan civilians whose family members collaborated with the US military, she said. He helped them acquire travel documents, arranged for safe transport over land to Pakistan and raised $130,000 to pay expenses, including visa applications and flights there to Brazil and eventually to the United States.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was hard,\u201d Piper said, but Mavalwalla was patient.<\/p>\n In text messages, he urged Piper to be sure to take care of herself and her family. \u201cIt does no good for us to neglect those right in front of us,\u201d he wrote on 25 September 2021, a month after the Taliban takeover.<\/p>\n \u201cYou cannot save the world,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s good to try though.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018An issue of selective prosecution\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Mavalwalla was one of hundreds of people to respond to a 11 June social media post<\/a> from the former president of the Spokane city council that encouraged protesters to block an Ice transport they believed would carry two Venezuelan immigrants who were in the country legally<\/a>, petitioning for asylum when they were detained.<\/p>\n \u201cI am going to sit in front of the bus,\u201d Ben Stuckart, the former city councilman wrote. \u201cFeel free to join me.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Rustomjee](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/480.jpg\")
Rustomjee and Gandhi. Photograph: undefined\/Courtesy Mavalwalla Family<\/p>\n