Christians Demand Retrial of Killers Australian Missionary

(BosNewsLife) – A leading Christian advocacy group has urged India ‘s Central Bureau of Investigation to take action against an Orissa High Court which cancelled the death sentence of a Hindu militant and acquitted 11 others in the murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons, six years ago. The Global Council of India Christian (GCIC) also demanded Friday, June 24, a retrial as key witnesses allegedly were feeling threatened by Hindu radicals in Orissa, India’s tense, Hindu dominated, eastern state. Last month the High Court ordered life imprisonment for militant Dara Singh, who had pleaded innocent and appealed against a lower court’s decision on September 15, 2003, to hang him and sentence 12 other men to life in jail. High Court Judges Sujit Burmon Roy and Laxmikant Mohapatra acquitted 11 of the other people sentenced to a life term for burning alive Staines and his children in a remote village in Orissa. The judges retained the life sentence on another man convicted of involvement in the killings on January 22, 1999. “I was shocked at the court verdict and want the CBI to appeal again in the apex court,”. GCIC National Convener Sajan K George told reporters in Bhubaneswar . “The Wadha Commission, which investigate the case, reports that Dara Singh was directly involved in the murder case. Contrary to the commission’s findings, the High court of Orissa gave its verdict on May 21, 2005,” he said.