Two Goa beach shack employees accused of sexually assaulting and culpable homicide, in one of the State’s most sensational sexual assault and homicide cases, involving British teenager Scarlett Keeling, were acquitted by a trial court here, even as victim’s mother and her lawyer have cried foul.
Samson D’Souza and Placido Carvalho, beach shack workers at luis shack at Anjuna beach, were acquitted by Goa Children’s Court president Vandana Tendulkar, who delivered a one-line order acquitting the duo. The judgment will be released in the public domain on Monday.
Soon after the order, Vikram Varma, counsel for the UK-based Fiona Mackeown, Scarlett’s mother said that they felt let down by the criminal justice system.
“The criminal justice goes into motion and those who are charged are acquitted, which essentially means that nobody killed her, nobody hurt her, nobody gave her cocaine... No one killed ScarlettIJ” Varma told The Pioneer.
Varma also said, that the acquittal after the prolonged trial could also mean that it was difficult for a foreign tourist to get justice, especially when the persons accused of committing the crime were locals.
“The delay has been of a reluctant system, which does not want to investigate a crime committed on a foreigner, if the crime has been committed by a local person,” Varma said.
The half-naked body of Scarlett, one of the eight children of Fiona who hails from Devon in England, was found dead at Anjuna beach, a beach in North Goa popular with foreign tourists, in February 2008.
The police initially dismissed the case as a suicide with an initial autopsy suggesting the same. However, a sustained campaign for justice by Fiona, forced the police to re-investigate the case. The second probe revealed 52 injury marks on her body and examination of her viscera discovered traces of cocaine and other drugs, which Fiona claimed were administered to her by her assailants.
The case was subsequently handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation after Fiona claimed that the local drug mafia was sabotaging the investigation which was being conducted by the Goa Police.
In course of the trial, which saw five judges overseeing the proceedings, Fiona also said that former Home Minister in the Congress-led coalition Government Ravi Naik and his son Roy were involved in drug trade and were responsible for the cover-up in police investigation.
Commenting on the acquittal, Fiona told The Pioneer that she was “deflated” following the acquittal and that she was hoping that the CBI would go in appeal.
“It is clear that the CBI is either incompetent or corrupt and I don’t believe that they are incompetent. I can only say that if international tourists come to Goa and they are murdered, they cannot hope for justice,” said Fiona.
She also blamed the conduct of UK resident Michael Mannion, a key prosecution witness, with eventually did not depose before a magistrate, for the acquittal. Mannion also known as Mike ‘Masala’ locally had initially told the police that he had seen Samson mount the drugged victim, before rushing away from the scene of crime.
“I hold him partially responsible for he let Scarlett down the first time when he drove off on that day and he has let her down today. He is a despicable coward...,” said Fiona.
When asked whether the CBI would appeal against the order, CBI’s counsel Ejaz Khan, however, said that a decision on the matter would only be taken after the agency gets a copy of the order.
“We haven’t seen the court order yet. We will get a copy of the order on Monday. We will be in a position to comment on the order only after going through the written order,” Khan said.
