By IANS,
London : A jobless Briton who killed an Indian Merchant Navy officer for the colour of his skin has been jailed for 18 years by a judge who said the crime was “as incomprehensible as evil”.
Christopher Miller, 25, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 18 years Tuesday for killing Kunal Mohanty by slashing his throat in an unprovoked attack as he was walking in the city of Glasgow along with a group of friends.
“There can be no justification for slashing the throat of a man who had done you no harm. To do so because of the colour of a man’s skin is as incomprehensible as it is evil,” Judge John Beckett told Miller.
“Everyone in this country should feel shame for what you did.”
Mohanty, 30, from Jalandhar, was in Glasgow to sit his captain’s exams at the city’s Nautical College, where he had begun his studies 10 years earlier. His wife was expecting their first child.
He was walking to a fast food restaurant in the Gorbals area of the Scottish city March 27 when a group, including Miller, approached him and asked him for a cigarette.
Kunal replied he did not smoke. Without warning, Miller produced a black lock knife and slit the seaman’s throat.
Mohanty’s friends, who were a few steps in front of him, told the trial that they had initially thought he was being sick, before realising that his neck was pouring with blood.
A doctor who tried to save Mohanty said that the 18cm knife-wound, which severed the carotid artery and jugular vein, was one of the worst injuries he had seen in 29 years of practice.
Closed-circuit television footage showed Miller and a friend running through a car park, celebrating as Mohanty lay dying.
The men are seen cuddling, punching their arms in the air and Miller pulling his jumper over his head – like a footballer celebrating a goal.
An hour later Miller was again recorded on CCTV throwing sauce at staff in an Asian takeaway restaurant, and shouting racial abuse at them.
Miller’s brother told the court the killer told him he had “done a Paki”.
Kunal’s brother Kanishk said Tuesday: “This is supposed to be a developed country.
“I fail to understand what kind of developed country it is where citizens of that country can do something like this, to someone simply because they are different.”
A prosecution spokeswoman said: “Kunal’s family, wife and friends back home in India, along with his friends and fellow students here in Glasgow, have been through a harrowing experience and we hope today’s verdict will offer some kind of comfort and allow them to somehow rebuild their lives.”