Goa court to rule on 2008 British schoolgirl’s death

Goa court to rule on 2008 British schoolgirl’s death

September 22, 2016
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MUMBAI — An Indian judge will finally deliver a verdict on Friday on two men over the rape and death of British schoolgirl Scarlett Keeling in Goa in 2008, after years of delays and controversy.

Fifteen-year-old Keeling’s bruised and half-naked body was found on popular Anjuna beach in the north of the Indian resort state eight years ago.

Her death made headlines worldwide, drawing attention to the dark side of a tourist destination that has long been a hangout for Western hippies and later highlighting India’s sluggish justice system.

Police initially dismissed the teenager’s death as an accident but opened a murder probe after Keeling’s mother, Fiona MacKeown, pushed for a second autopsy which proved she had been drugged and raped.


MacKeown also accused local authorities of trying to cover up the death to protect drug gangs operating in Goa, a former Portuguese colony.

Several weeks after the attack, local men Samson D’Souza and Placido Carvalho were arrested and charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder, using force with intent to outrage a woman’s modesty and of administering drugs with intent to harm.

The move angered the victim’s family who had wanted the defendants tried for rape and murder, but officers from India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said they lacked sufficient evidence to indict them on stronger charges.

Police allege D’Souza and Carvalho plied Keeling with a cocktail of drink and illegal drugs, including cocaine, before sexually assaulting her and leaving her to die by dumping her unconscious in shallow water where she drowned. — AFP


September 22, 2016
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