2 yr on, Scarlett's body still in morgue waiting GoI clearance
Even after two years of her tragic death, UK teenager Scarlett Eden Keeling's body remains to be buried with the British authorities yet to get clearance from the Government of India to hand over the corpse.
In an email interview, Scarlett's mother Fiona Mackeown said the coroner is waiting for the completion of paperwork from the relevant Indian departments.
"The coroner has not released her body to me, she is still in the morgue in Exeter (city in Davon, UK)," she said.
The body was flown to UK in March 2008, she said.
On February 18, 2008, Scarlett's battered, semi-nude corpse was found on Goa's Anjuna beach. As of now, the case stands charge sheeted in the local court. Two locals – Placido Carvalho and Samson D'Souza – are held accused in the case.
Goa police after initial goof-up, later cracked down the case which revealed that the teenager was drugged and left to die on the beach.
The case was finally handed over to CBI after consistent distrust by Fiona in the state police.
Two autopsies were conducted on the body at Goa medical college and hospital while the authorities in UK carried another.
Few of the organs, which were left behind in India, were sent to UK by Indian authorities in the last week of May 2009, after much delay, Fiona said.
"While the body of Scarlett rest in a morgue, the criminals responsible I presume are happy that the spirit of law lies buried below its letters," Fiona's lawyer Vikram Varma told PTI today.
He slammed the investigating agencies' act of watering down the charges against the accused from murder to culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
