By IANS,
New Delhi : A city court Saturday held two cab drivers guilty of raping, killing and looting an Australian tourist in the Indian capital, a crime that had made headlines in 2004.
Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Kumar convicted Jyotish Prasad and Ashish Kumar for murdering Dawn Griggs, 59, within hours of her landing at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport.
The court held them guilty under Section 302 (murder), 376 (rape), 394 (robbery) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The sentence will be pronounced Aug 4.
Griggs, who arrived here from Hong Kong in the early hours of March 17, 2004 to enrol herself in a meditation course, had taken a pre-paid taxi from the international airport and was later found murdered in a nearby field.
During the hearing, the two accused had alleged that they had been framed as police were under pressure to crack the case.
“Just to impute motive for the offence, police planted on the accused some travellers’ cheques and 300-400 Hong Kong dollars allegedly belonging to the victim,” defence counsel Vikas Arora had claimed.
But public prosecutor Vinod Kumar Sharma, while wrapping up the arguments, claimed there was sufficient evidence against the accused and they, by their dastardly act, had earned a bad name for the country.