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Goa hands over murder case
25/03/2008 13:55 - (SA)
Panaji, India - The government of the Indian resort state of Goa said it would hand over a probe into the murder of a British teenager to federal investigators after charges of a local police cover-up.
The mother of 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling, whose bruised corpse was found on Goa's popular Anjuna beach last month, has accused police of shielding politicians and drug dealers during the investigation of her daughter's death.
"We are willing to hand over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as Scarlett's mother has been demanding," Chief Minister Digambar Kamat told the state assembly late on Monday.
"We want to clear suspicions raised about Goa's police and politicians," he said.
An aide to the chief minister confirmed on Tuesday that the state was writing to the federal agency this week to ask them to formally take over the case.
"We're writing in the next two days," said the aide, declining to be named.
Forcibly drowned
The announcement came after Goan police on Sunday rejected a new forensic report that said Scarlett was forcibly drowned and not left to die in shallow water after being raped and drugged as police had alleged.
The report by Dr Silvano Sapeco said Scarlett was held under water for up to 10 minutes and the alcohol and drugs in her body were "not enough to cause coma and death."
Multiple bruises on the body and other findings were consistent with a "(text) book picture of homicidal drowning," the doctor added.
The decision to hand the case to federal authorities also came after MacKeown was put under armed guard after expressing fears of retaliation from the drug mafia or other quarters, saying she had stirred up a "hornet's nest."
Earlier this month, Goan police arrested Samson D'Souza, 29, a bartender, on accusations of murder and alleged drug dealer Placido Carvalho, 29, on conspiracy to murder.
The police allege D'Souza conspired with Carvalho to drug Scarlett and then repeatedly raped and later dumped her unconscious in shallow water where she drowned.
- AFP
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