CBI court sentences Catholic priest, nun to life imprisonment for murder of Sister Abhaya

Delivering the quantum of punishment a day after convicting the two accused -- Father Thomas Kottoor and Sister Sephy, CBI Special judge K Sanal Kumar awarded double life sentence to the priest and slapped a total fine of Rs 12 lakh.The sentences shall run concurrently, the court said.

A Catholic priest and a nun were on Wednesday sentenced to life imprisonment by a special CBI court here for the murder of Sister Abhaya 28 years ago in Kottayam in Kerala, saying their ''nocturnal misadventure paved way to the ''cold blooded'' killing. Delivering the quantum of punishment a day after convicting the two accused -- Father Thomas Kottoor and Sister Sephy, CBI Special judge K Sanal Kumar awarded double life sentence to the priest and slapped a total fine of Rs 12 lakh.

The sentences shall run concurrently, the court said. Kottoor pleaded before the court that he was a senior citizen aged 71, suffering from various diseases, including stage IV prostate cancer, and sought that maximum mercy.

Sister Sephy impetrated the mercy of the Court on account of her age and her illnesses, including deep vein thrombosis of right lower limb, and said she has parents who are nonagenarians. Abhaya, an inmate of the St Pius convent in Kottayam, was found dead in a well there on March 27, 1992. According to the prosecution, the accused hacked her with an axe and threw her into the well after she saw Kottoor and Sephy in a compromising position on the night of March 27.

The CBI took over the case after local police and Crime Branch dealt with the matter. In its reaction, the Knanaya Catholic Church termed as 'unbelievable', the allegations against its priest and nun and said they have the right to go for an appeal and prove their 'innocence.' ''The death of sister Abhaya was sad and unfortunate. The special CBI court has found that she was murdered by Fr Thomas Kottoor and Sister Sephy and awarded them life imprisonment.

The allegations against them are unbelievable. ''However, we accept the court order. The accused persons have the right to go for an appeal against the order and prove their innocence,'' the Kottayam archdiocese said in a statement.

In his detailed 229-page judgement, the judge held it was proved the death was due to head injury and drowning and the fatal attack was the effect of the sexual act between the culprits in the case. Judge Sanal Kumar made a special mention of Adacka Raju, a petty thief, who had entered the convent to steal something on the day of the crime and saw the accused, saying he stood his ground disregarding substantial monetary reward among other inducements.

He termed the case as ''hanging fire'' for more than quarter a century and equated it with the trial of Warren Hastings, saying ''the Judges moved and the case stood still''. ''The present case has been hanging fire for 28 years, and invites a slight misquotation of the remark quoted by Lord Macaulay in his essay: the Judges moved and the case stood still,'' the judge said.

The court imposed a fine of Rs 6.5 lakh on Kottoor and a fine of Rs 5.5 lakh on Sister Sephy. Fr Kottoor was handed down double life term for two offences -- murder and criminal trespass under sections 302 and 449 of IPC respectively.

The court has slapped a fine of Rs five lakh under section 302 and one lakh for criminal trespass. ''I do not see any reason not to award the maximum punishment envisaged by this penal section as his nocturnal misadventure paved way to the cold blooded murder of the victim,'' the judge noted in his judgement while awarding punishment for criminal trespass.

It also sentenced the priest to seven years of imprisonment and Rs 50,000 fine for tampering the evidence under section 201 of the IPC. Sister Sephy has been imprisoned for life under section 302 of IPC along with a fine of Rs five lakh and seven years imprisonment for tampering with the evidence which also carries a fine of Rs 50,000.

The court also pointed out that the then DySP K. Samuel and the then Superintendent of Police K.T Michael ''were involved in the activities of destruction of the material objects in this case''. ''The Police Head of the state will take necessary steps to ensure that such misdeeds on the part of the police, including the Crime Branch, does not occur in future,'' the court said.

The court said the destruction of documents and the ''causation of the disappearance of the evidence by vested interests'' is a shockingly grave allegation raised by the present investigating team. The CBI court considered the statement of Adacka Raju, a thief, who was present at the convent on the fateful night to steal a copper plate from the lightning conductor atop the building, and said he stood his ground despite the grilling during cross-examination.

''Adacka Raju may have been a thief, but he was and is an honest man, a simple person without the need to dissemble, a human being who became a professional thief by the force of circumstances, but a speaker of truth nonetheless... ''He was subjected to continuous, severe and grueling cross-examination by two lawyers for two long days, but he, uneducated and untrained though he was, stood his ground,'' the judge observed.

The court also said Raju stood his ground and did not budge even an inch, even as he was offered a substantial monetary reward and a job for his wife and the meeting of the educational expenses of his children and a house to live in, ''but he did not succumb to these blandishments''. The court said it was proved that the murder was the effect of the sexual act between the culprits in the case.

The court relied upon an inference suggested by Fr Kottoor that he had a relationship with Sister Sephy and that they were like husband and wife. ''From proved circumstances..., it is inexorable to infer that A1 (Fr Kottor) entered the ground floor of the convent building with the help of A3 (Sister Sephy) to carry out their sexual activities and on the witnessing of the same by Sister Abhaya, she was attacked with a blunt weapon,'' the court observed.

The convicts, who were on bail, were taken into judicial custody on Wednesday after the mandatory COVID-19 testing and police had shifted Father Kottoor to Poojapura central jail and Sister Sephy to Attakulangara women's prison here. Another accused in the case, Fr Jose Puthrikkayil, was discharged earlier following lack of evidence.