Court summons mother Fiona in Scarlet death case
PTI, PANAJI | 18 July 2010 11:47 IST
Fiona Mackeown, whose teenager daughter Scarlet Eden Keeling was found dead on Goa’s shore, is summoned to testify before the local court on July 30.
CBI counsel SR Rivonkar, said a summon is served to Fiona.
Fiona's lawyer Vikram Varma, however, said he is yet to receive the summons in this case and his client is ready to depose before the court.
Scarlet's battered corpse was found on Anjuna shore in February 2008.
Goa Police had arrested two locals for drugging, raping and leaving the teenage girl to die on the shore.
The investigation was handed over to the CBI after Fiona had expressed her distrust over Goa police probe into Scarlet's death.
The trial has began at Goa Children's court in this case and the court has examined 13 out of 72 witnesses.
This is for the second time that Fiona has been summoned in the court.
Earlier, on April 15, she was summoned by the court, but could not make it after flights from UK were cancelled due to Icelandic volcanic ash that had disturbed entire air traffic in Europe.
Meanwhile, absence of a court stenographer postponed the hearing of British teenager Scarlett Eden Keeling death case in Goa children's court to a next date.
Goa children's court in Panaji yesterday could not record the statement of witness Murli Sagar, who was working as a cook in the beach shack.
"The witness could not be taken up as there was no stenographer. The next hearing would be on July 23," SR Rivonkar, public prosecutor, told PTI outside the court hall.
Murli is considered as a crucial witness in the case. The youth from Mumbai was working in the shack named Curlie's adjacent to the place where Scarlett's body was found.
The investigations had revealed that Murli had brought Scarlett to Anjuna in his car and was later around in the shack when Scarlett reportedly sniffed drugs.
Police had said that Murli was reportedly present at Lui Shack, where Scarlett visited, during her last few hours. British school girl, Scarlett, holidaying with her mother Fiona Mackeown was found dead on the Anjuna beach shore in February 2008.
Police had arrested two locals - Samson D'Souza and Placido Carvalho, for drugging, raping and leaving the teenager to die on the shore.
The case was later handed over to Central Bureau of Investigation after Scarlett's mother showed no faith in the state police.
Scarlet's death had raised a question mark over the safety of tourists in Goa after Goa police's initial tardy investigation into the case.
Police had claimed this as a death due to drowning before her mother launched a campaign seeking justice to her slain daughter.
The investigations had revealed that Scarlet was high on booze and drugs and was allegedly raped by a local bar tenderer before being left to die on the beach.
The guilty has to be speedily punished !
The powerful and well connected people always manipulate the system and most of the time escape without punishment. This is true especially of the corrupt politicians. If all the evidence is against, they resort to dilatory tactics and delay the case for decades. The bhopal gas tragedy, the sikh massacre case are two such examples where it took more than 25 years and the cases are not yet settled to their logical conclusions! Will the MPs from Goa, take note of such huge delays and do something to sort out the issues!
Were the goa police in a trance when murli was loitering around AFTER THE CRIME and if they knew that he was the main witness to the crime how come the wrong tomcats are belled instead of the the missing tabby cat, murli should have been the main suspect as these crimes are always hatched by these conmen who find themselves Goa as an abode for sex, drugs and concubines and if not murli must have been LOMG GONE dead and gone only for the cops to say there isn't a witness at all.