The Hindu : New Delhi News : Griggs rape and murder case verdict reserved

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Tuesday, Mar 10, 2009
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New Delhi

Griggs rape and murder case verdict reserved

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has reserved judgment on appeals by two taxi drivers seeking setting aside of a lower court verdict of last year sentencing them to death in the Dawn Emilie Griggs rape-cum-murder case in the Capital in 2004.

The lower court had held the two -- Jyotish Prasad and Ashish Kumar -- guilty of brutally killing the 59-year-old Ms. Griggs after criminally assaulting her and robbing her of her belongings. She was an Australian national on a visit to Delhi.

The High Court reserved the judgment on conclusion of arguments by counsel for the convicts and the prosecution.

In their separate appeals, the two convicts argued that they had been framed by the police due to the urgency on their part to solve the case as soon as possible because a foreign woman was the victim.

They submitted that the trial court had convicted them on the basis of circumstantial evidence as the investigating agency had failed to collect any direct evidence proving their alleged crime.

The prosecution in its argument said there were infirmities in the trial court judgment. Its counsel said the convicts had sexually assaulted and murdered a helpless woman. Their crime had tarnished the image of the country and had an adverse impact on tourism.

Ms. Griggs, who arrived in Delhi from Australia via Hong Kong, was found murdered in a deserted field near the Indira Gandhi International Airport on March 17, 2004, hours after she had taken a pre-paid taxi from the airport. She had come to India to get enrolled in a meditation course. According to the prosecution, Jyotish and Ashish had brutally murdered her and then tried to decamp with her belongings.

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