Man gets 16 months for hate messages, vandalising gurdwara in US

A 29-year-old man in the US has been sentenced to 16 months in prison for vandalising a gurdwara in 2017, according to a media report.

Artyom Manukyan’s sentence is concurrent with a penalty he faces under a prior arson case, Los Angeles Times reported.

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He scrawled two hateful screeds outside the Hollywood Sikh Temple on Vermont Avenue in Los Feliz on August 2017, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

Police was earlier considering hate crime charges against Manukyan, saying the messages were designed as a threat to the Sikh community. He pleaded no contest to felony vandalism of religious property in August 2018.

He was sentenced on Monday.

Before the 2017 incident, Manukyan was previously arrested on suspicion of burglary, grand theft auto and making criminal threats, the report said.

At the time of the vandalism, there had been an 11.5 per cent increase in hate crimes across California in the previous year, according to the California Department of Justice.