New Delhi: Kerala High Court on Thursday suspended the life imprisonment sentence and granted bail to convicts in the Sister Abhaya murder case. The court has earlier allowed the applications filed by murder case convicts Sister Sephy and Father Thomas Kottoor seeking the suspension of life imprisonment sentence imposed.
A bench of justices Vinod Chandran and C Jayachandran granted conditional bail to the convicts in the Sister Abhaya murder case. After a long legal battle, Catholic priest Thomas and nun Sephy were sentenced to life imprisonment in December 2020 by a CBI court, which found them guilty in the murder case of Sister Abhaya, 19, whose body was found in a Kottayam convent well on March 27, 1992.
Also read | Sister Abhaya Murder: 28 Years After Murder, Kerala Catholic Priest, Nun Get Life Imprisonment
The verdict came 28 years after the body of Sister Abhaya, was found in a well at a convent where she was an inmate along with other 122 inmates. According to CBI, Abhaya was killed after she found Kottoor, Putrikkayil and Sephy in a compromising position inside the kitchen of the hostel, where Abhaya was living.
The court came to the decision of convicting the two, after allowing the discharge petition of Putrikkayil, based on the circumstantial evidence and a thief's statement, who claimed that he saw the priests on the day of the incident.