Hearings end in Scarlett death case

Hearings ended on Friday in the appeal filed by the CBI against the acquittal of two beach-shack workers accused in 2008 of sexually assaulting and causing the death of British teenager Scarlett Keeling, the agency's special prosecutor said.

"The matter is closed for judgement," Central Bureau of Investigation's special counsel Ejaz Khan told reporters in Panaji.

The CBI last year challenged the acquittal by the Goa Children's Court of two beach-shack workers Samson D'Souza and Placido Carvalho, who were accused of sexually assaulting 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling and leaving her to die on Anjuna beach in 2008.

D'Souza and Carvalho had been charged under Indian Penal Code sections 304 (II) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 354 (assault or use of criminal force on a woman with an intent to outrage her modesty) and 328 (administering stupefying drug with an intent to cause hurt).

During the hearing conducted at the High Court bench here, the CBI had argued that the Goa Children's Court had erroneously acquitted the accused based on technicalities even as D'Souza and Carcalho's defence lawyers claimed that there was no direct evidence to link them to the crime.

The sexual assault and subsequent death of Keeling had put the spotlight on the issue of safety of women in Goa, which attracts more than seven million tourists every year, half a million being foreign nationals.

--IANS

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