A 20-year-old man of Indian origin in the United States has been sentenced to eight years imprisonment for crashing a truck near the White House in May 2023 as part of his plot to topple the country’s government and seize power, AP reported on Friday.

Sai Varshith Kandula, 19 at the time, had pleaded guilty to one count of wilful injury or federal property damage in May 2024. He has remained in custody since his arrest from the scene of crime.

Kandula had said that he rammed his truck into the security barriers as part of his attempt to replace the democratic government in the United States with a dictatorship inspired by the ideology of Nazi Germany, according to a US attorney. When Kandula was nabbed, he told the authorities that he wanted to kill United States President Joe Biden.

As he was being taken into custody, Kandula took out a Nazi flag from his backpack and told the authorities that he admired Nazism and Adolf Hitler. He also said that his goal was to “get to the White House, seize power and be put in charge of the nation”.

Kandula has been sentenced to three years of supervised release following his prison term and ordered to pay nearly $57,000 in compensation, according to court records.

The authorities had found no weapons, ammunition or explosives in Kandula’s possession. However, prosecutors argued that the attempted assassination of President-elect Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania in July demonstrates that “individuals who carry such destructive intent are capable of causing serious harm to the American political system”.

Kandula had flown on a commercial plane from St Louis to capital Washington DC, on a one-way ticket on May 22, 2023, hours before the incident, court documents show.

He reached Washington’s Dulles airport at 5.20 pm and rented the truck at 6.30 pm. At 9.30 pm, he rammed the truck into the security barricades near the White House.

“Kandula planned the attack for several weeks,” a press release said. “Before renting the truck and crashing it on White House grounds, he made several attempts to gain access to vehicles or armed security guards.”