Thiruvananthapuram: The CBI special court here, on Wednesday, awarded life sentence to Father Thomas Kottoor, and Sister Sephy, for the charges of murder of Sister Abhaya, 21, and subsequently destroying evidence.
On Tuesday, the CBI judge K Sanilkumar had found Father Thomas Kottoor, 71, guilty of charges of murder, destruction of evidence and criminal house trespass, and Sister Sephy, 57, guilty of murder and destruction of evidence.
Before delivering the sentence, the court heard the prosecution and the two convicts for one last time. The prosecution pleaded for capital punishment for the two convicts citing that it is perhaps the first time in history that a priest and nun were being convicted for the murder of another nun. The prosecutor also cited that the victim was a hapless novice, the accused were her superiors and they carried out systematic and comprehensive destruction of evidence.
Father Kottoor pleaded that he was a senior citizen and was suffering from various diseases, including stage IV prostate cancer, and sought maximum mercy. Sister Sephy also pleaded for leniency of the court while deciding the quantum of sentence citing her ill-health as she was suffering from deep vein thrombosis. She also cited that she had parents, both of them in their 90s.
The defence counsel pleaded against awarding capital punishment citing that the offence was not a pre-planned one and the accused did not have criminal antecedence, apart from citing their advanced age and ill-health.
After hearing all the pleas, the judge took a 15-minute break following which he returned to the bench and delivered the sentence. The prosecution had examined 49 witnesses during the trial.
In his 229-page order, Sanilkumar did not forget to address the extraordinarily long time the case took for its conclusion. In the introduction of the order, the judge observed that this attention-grabbing case has been dragging on for more than a quarter of a century. In its conclusion, the judge held that the evidence on record is more than sufficient to hold that the unbroken chain of circumstances that cumulatively point towards the guilt of the accused having caught red-handed in compromising position that led them to inflict fatal blow on Sister Abhaya’s head, knowing that the injuries were sufficient to cause her death.