Body of teen murdered in Goa to be sent home

Posted 04 7 2008 9:06PM

PANAJI, India (AFP) - The body of a British teenager raped and murdered last month in India's resort state of Goa will be released this week to her mother for burial at home, a family lawyer said Wednesday.

Scarlett Keeling's body has remained in police custody since her death on February 18 as her mother, convinced the 15-year-old was murdered, battled with local police who retracted an initial report that said she drowned.

Police will on Thursday release the body to her mother, Fiona MacKeown, who then plans to return to London at the weekend or early next week.

"We have all the required permissions," said family lawyer Vikram Varma.

The lawyer said MacKeown, who has accused police of shielding politicians and drug dealers during the investigation of her daughter's death, hopes to return to India to pursue the case.

MacKeown decided to take her daughter's body home for burial in Devon, southwest England, after the Goa government on Tuesday accepted her demand that it hand over a murder probe she has called "a farce" to federal investigators.

Earlier this month, Goan police arrested Samson D'Souza, 29, a bartender, for murder, and alleged drug dealer Placido Carvalho, 29, on conspiracy to murder.

Police in Goa say D'Souza conspired with Carvalho to give Scarlett a cocktail of illegal drugs and then repeatedly raped her before dumping her bruised and unconscious in shallow water where she drowned.

They on Sunday rejected a new forensic report which said Scarlett was forcibly drowned.

The doctor who released the latest report was suspended this week by the state's health department.

It was not clear if MacKeown would be able to return to India to pursue her claims of an official cover-up surrounding her daughter's death, as Goa's home minister said he would ask New Delhi to bar her from entering the country.

"If she is allowed by the home ministry, then she would like to come back and continue her fight for justice," said Varma.