Sepia Mutiny has been covering the case of Biswanath Halder – a man with an interesting on-line trail – for a few months. In the latest development, while he may be an attempted mass murderer, he’s not quite a terrorist –

A US court has tossed out terrorism charge against an Indian accused of a seven-hour university shooting rampage in 2003, but retained 201 other charges against him, including aggravated murder.

Biswanath Halder’s attack against a “small, random” group of people in Case Western Reserve University’s business school building did not constitute a terrorist attack on the civil population as defined by Ohio law, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Peggy Foley ruled on Wednesday.

If convicted of the aggravated murder charge, 65-year-old Halder, who hails from Kolkata, could get death penalty.

Prosecuting him as a terrorist is a bit extreme although I can see both sides of the case – there’s probably a DA in this mix who’s been instructed to go “Timothy McVeigh” on his ass and throw the book at him – including marginal claims. On the flip side, the defense just gave a basic “c’mon, the dude was acting alone for dubious motives – he’s certainly not Al Qaeda linked.” At the limit, it does raise important questions about when an act is a loony acting on his own and when it’s part of a larger terrorist agenda (I suppose, given the tone of SM of late, that many folks here would argue that “terrorist = brown dude that a white cop / DA doesn’t like.”).

Whatever the case, it’s not like Halder’s getting off scot free although perhaps if he writes a few children’s books he might be more successful at travelling down the Tookie Williams path. And just what set off our 65 yr old defendant?

Halder went to the University’s Business School with more than 1000 rounds of ammunition because he thought that a computer lab employee had hacked into his website which was set up to help people from India form businesses.

1000 rounds – this guy ain’t f*ckin’ around. An hour of solid shooting at the range is probably no more than 200 rounds. Homey was loading up for a 5 hr shootathon. Moral of the story – be careful when you step between a desi dude, his computer, and his business.