Karmapa cleared of all charges

In January, the sleepy hill sta­tion of Dharamsala, India, was rocked when the res­i­dence of the 17th Karmapa, a pop­u­lar and influ­en­tial young Tibetan Buddhist monk, was raided by police. Accusations lev­eled against the Karmapa ranged from money laun­der­ing and ille­gal land deals to being a Chinese mole. After weeks of inves­ti­ga­tion and spec­u­la­tion, he has now been cleared of all charges. The Tibet Connection’s South Asia cor­re­spon­dent, Rebecca Novick, explains what hap­pened and why.