Student Convicted of Threatening to Kill President Bush, Faces Up to 35 Years in Prison

A Purdue University graduate student was convicted of threatening to kill President Bush, vice president Dick Cheney and others in postings on the Internet.

Vikram Buddhi, 35, an Indian national who was attending advanced engineering classes at Purdue's West Lafayette campus, was found guilty by a federal jury Thursday on 11 counts of making threats that were posted in a chat room in 2005 and 2006.

Buddhi faces up to 35 years in prison when he is sentenced later this year.

Buddhi hijacked online identities of other Purdue students to post messages, the federal indictment said. The messages justified the murder of Bush and Cheney and the rape of their wives. He also made threats against then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and sensitive American infrastructure, U.S. attorneys said during the three-day trial.

Buddhi, who spent a decade studying at Purdue in West Lafayette, never disputed writing online messages such as, "Call for the assassination of GW Bush" and "Rape and Kill Laura Bush."