The two defendants, Mr. Sephy and Father Kottoor, were found guilty under sections 302 (murder) and 449 (trespassing for a crime punishable by death) of the Indian Penal Code.
Father Thomas Kottoor (73) and Sister Sephy (57): Two people convicted of killing a teenage nun, Sister Abhaya in 1992, have been sentenced to life imprisonment. An IWC court in Thiruvananthapuram sentenced Sister Abhaya’s murderers in a decades-long case to trial and witnessed a strong circle, aided by powerful people in the church, trying to change course.
The prosecution asked Judge Sanal Kumar to give the maximum punishment to the two convicted for killing the 19-year-old nun and throwing her into a well in 1992. The prosecution told the judge that Kottoor did not live in the convent and that he entered the place he exposed his criminal intentions and it was a burglary case.
Meanwhile, Kottoor’s lawyer pleaded that since he is elderly and a cancer patient, he should receive minimal punishment. Kottoor told the judge that he was also a diabetic patient who needed insulin on a daily basis. Sister Sephy pleaded with the judge that she was the only source of income for her family. Although both convicts made their requests to the judge directly, the judge imposed life imprisonment on the duo and asked them to pay a fine of Rs 5 lakh each.
The two defendants have been found guilty despite the fact that several witnesses turned hostile during the trial. Indeed, hostility from key witnesses was one of the main challenges faced by the prosecution during the trial, which began in August 2019.
Sister Sephy and Father Kottoor were found guilty under Articles 302 (Murder) and 449 (Trespassing for a crime punishable by death) of the Indian Penal Code. They were also found guilty under section 201 of destroying evidence.
The infamous case dates back to 1992, when Abhaya was found dead in the well of the Pius X Convent in Kottayam. According to the findings of the CBI investigation, the nun was murdered by two priests Thomas Kottoor and José Poothrikkayil and Sister Sephy, a nun in her convent. However, José Poothrikkayil was later dismissed of all charges by the court due to lack of evidence. The CBI investigation found that Sr. Abhaya found the priests and Sephy in a compromising position in the convent kitchen and killed her for fear that she would speak about it.
The CBI took over the case in 1993 and 13 groups of agents investigated the case. The CBI submitted three reports on the case. While the first closed the case as one of the suicides, the other two reports claimed it was a homicide, but the investigations did not yield enough evidence to catch the perpetrators. All three reports were rejected by the court that requested a new investigation.
Fifteen years after the CBI began its investigation, the defendants in the case were finally arrested in 2008. When the trial began in August 2019, eight witnesses turned hostile.
The strongest evidence in the case was witness statements about the mess they saw in the kitchen after Abhaya’s body was found in the well. The witnesses testified that Abhaya’s shoes, a bottle of water and her veil were in the kitchen. The refrigerator door was also found open. Some other lost items found in the room indicated a struggle in the kitchen when the victim went to drink water on March 27, 1992.
Another crucial witness was a former thief named ‘Adakka’ Raju who had entered the convent that day to steal. Identified the accused. In Raju’s statement to the CBI, he said he saw two priests, Thomas M Kottoor (first defendant) and José Poothrikkayil (second defendant who was later discharged from the case), climbing the ladder at the back of the convent.
Sister Abhaya was a second-year undergraduate student at BCM College for Women in Kottayam. Father Thomas Kottoor was Sister Abhaya’s teacher, who taught psychology at the university and Sister Sephy was a recluse in the convent.
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