Catholic Priest and Nun sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder

On 22 December 2020, 28 years after her murder, the killers of Sister Abhaya were sentenced to life imprisonment.

A court in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India handed over the life sentences earlier this week, including a fine of over USD10,000 to Fr Thomas Kottoor and Sister Sephy for brutally murdering Sister Abhaya.

The motive behind the murder was that Sister Abhaya accidentally witnessed the two priests and the nun in a ‘compromised position’ in the convent kitchen. In its judgement, the court declared the evidence “more than sufficient to hold that the unbroken catena of circumstances is so complete that it cumulatively points towards the guilt of the accused,” and leads to the conclusion, “which is inconsistent with the innocence of the accused.”

The court went on to say: “[T]he only possibility is that it is the accused and the accused alone who have inflicted a fatal blow on the rear side and middle of the head of Sister Abhaya with a blunt weapon, like hand axe, at about 4.30 a.m. on 27.03.1992 on the ground floor of the St Pius X Convent, Kottayam.” The purpose of the attack, according to the judgment of the court:

[T]o commit murder, knowing that the injuries were sufficient to cause her death, caused the evidence of the same to disappear, by dumping Sister Abhaya into the well near the room of [Sister Sephy], to make it appear that the said injuries were sustained during the fall and that Sister Abhaya had committed suicide, to screen themselves from legal punishment.

The court also stated that Fr Thomas Kottoor admitted to having a [physical] relationship with Sister Sephy before the murder.

In a scathing observation against the botched up police investigation, the court stated that there was a systematic and organised effort to prevent the case from reaching its logical conclusion. Furthermore, it was convinced that the then Kerala Police officials, K Samuel and K.T Michael were involved in the activities of destroying material objects related to the case. In 1994, KT Michael gave public interviews stating that Sister Abhaya committed suicide.

After the verdict was pronounced, the Knanaya Catholic community stated that the allegations against the priest and the nun were unbelievable and that they had the right to appeal and prove their innocence. However, the Kottayam Archeparchy of the community said that it accepted the verdict of the honourable court. All throughout the trial, both the accused have been working in public ministries.

The case trails back to 1992, when 19-year-old Sister Abhaya was found dead in a well of the St Pius X Convent in Kottayam, Kerala. Initially, when the local police and Crime Branch investigated the case for ten months, they closed it as a suicide.

However, owing to multiple protests, the case was handed over to the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigations – India’s National Investigative Agency) in 1993. CBI also filed a closure report stating that the case was a suicide, which the court rejected, and ordered a re-investigation. Four different teams constituted by the CBI sought permission from the court, on different occasions, to close the case citing lack of evidence, poor initial investigations by the police, destruction of evidence and that the accused could not be traced. However, the court denied all the requests and directed the agency to pursue the case using scientific methods.

In December 2008, the CBI informed the court that they discovered fresh evidence that Fr Thomas Kottoor, Fr Jose Poothrukayil and Sister Sephy had murdered Sister Abhaya because she accidentally witnessed the three in a compromised position in the community kitchen at 4:30 AM when she went to fetch some drinking water. The three were also charged with destroying evidence, criminal conspiracy and other charges.

In 2018, the court acquitted Fr Poothrukayil due to lack of evidence.

A former CBI officer, Varghese Thomas, who was the first investigator to term the case as murder after a few months of investigation, sought voluntary retirement from the bureau, following mounting pressure from his superiors and from the then Prime Minister’s office to write the case off as a suicide. Emotionally reacting to the verdict, Thomas said that the verdict vindicates his initial findings, which was rejected by his superiors.

The court observed how a poorly paid cook of the convent had engaged in expensive litigation and hiring one of India’s top lawyers to represent her before the Supreme Court of India to challenge a narco analysis test related to the case. The cook, Achamma, admitted that she was financed by the convent.

The court also observed that, since Fr Thomas Kottoor was the Secretary to the late Bishop Kuriakose Kunnassery of Kottayam Diocese, “It is reasonable to suppose that [Fr Kottor] had at his control the immense resources of the diocese in terms of money and material and could command the obedience of priests, nuns and laymen.”

 

Image: Undated photo of Sr Abhaya (Screenshot)

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