Top Indian-American Scholar Ashley Tellis in Spy Case Gets Pre-Trial Release

This special report focuses on the pre-trial release of prominent Indian-American strategic affairs expert, Ashley Tellis, who is facing an espionage case filed by the U.S. government. Tellis’s defence team described the case against him as ‘an overreach against a patriot’, arguing his actions stemmed from scholarly curiosity, not espionage. The 64-year-old scholar was arrested on charges of unlawful retention of national defence information after the FBI allegedly found over a thousand pages of classified documents at his Virginia home. A Virginia court ordered his release pending trial under strict conditions, including electronic monitoring and the surrender of his passport, against a $1.5 million bond. His lawyers contend that the documents were work products inadvertently retained and that his interactions with foreign officials were transparent academic exchanges, not secret missions.