SC acquits man sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering mother in 2010
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court on Tuesday acquitted a man who was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering his mother, saying there was a "mystery" surrounding the genesis and origin of the prosecution case.
A bench of Justices K V Viswanathan and K Vinod Chandran set aside a July 2013 order of the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court which upheld his conviction in the 2010 case.
The prosecution alleged that the last rites of the deceased were hurriedly carried out and the body was removed from the pyre after strangulation marks on the neck and an injury on the backside of the skull were found.
The bench observed that the case rests entirely on circumstantial evidence.
"There is a mystery surrounding the genesis and origin of the prosecution case," it said.
It referred to the testimonies of four prosecution witnesses, including some police officers, who all admittedly landed up on the morning of July 22, 2010, at the site of the alleged first cremation attempt.
The bench said on a complete reading of their testimonies, "a lingering doubt still remains in our mind as to why further leads from that time, place and alleged event were not picked up and why no further investigation as to who organised the cremation was carried out".
It said no leads from the crowd gathered there were picked out and nobody was examined in the court.
The bench said the failure to investigate the crowd which had assembled and disbursed at the first alleged attempt at cremating the deceased baffles one's comprehension.
It noted there was no definite medical opinion and in view of the considerable ambiguity in the evidence of the medical expert, death by suicide cannot be said to be completely ruled out.
The bench further noted that the counsel appearing for the appellant contended that during the investigation, police obtained a certificate, dated September 26, 1989, issued by a hospital in Latur which indicated that the deceased was suffering from schizophrenia.
The top court said it was alleged that the appellant murdered his mother for property.
"Having come out with a case of motive, the prosecution has miserably failed to establish the same. It has come on record that the appellant has his father as well as two sisters who are alive," it said.
"It is not as if that the property would, on the death of the deceased, immediately devolve on the appellant in the event of the alleged murder by him going undetected," the bench said.
It said the courts below had fallen into a serious error in convicting the appellant on the basis of the evidence on record.
While allowing the appeal filed by the appellant, the bench acquitted him of all the charges.
The trial court convicted two persons in the case and sentenced them to life imprisonment. The high court upheld the conviction of the appellant while acquitting the other person.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Bill Gates apologises to Foundation staff over Epstein ties: report
New York (PTI): American tech entrepreneur Bill Gates has apologised to the staff at the Gates Foundation over his ties with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein but maintained that he did “nothing illicit,” according to a media report.
The Microsoft co-founder also admitted that he had two affairs with Russian women and that he made mistakes that had cast a cloud over the philanthropic group while insisting he didn’t participate in Epstein’s crimes, The Wall Street Journal said in an exclusive report on Tuesday.
Gates was among the scores of celebrities, politicians, leaders and tech entrepreneurs shown having connections with the sex offender as was evident in the tens of thousands of documents, including emails, interview transcripts, photos, call logs etc with some names redacted, released online – collectively termed Epstein files - last month by the US Justice Department.
In a town hall on Tuesday, Gates acknowledged that he had two affairs with Russian women that Epstein later discovered, but that they didn’t involve Epstein’s victims. “I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,” Gates said, according to a recording reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Gates said images in the recently released Epstein files showing him with women whose faces are redacted were pictures that Epstein asked him to take with Epstein’s assistants after their meetings. “To be clear, I never spent any time with victims, the women around him,” Gates said.
“It was a huge mistake to spend time with Epstein” and bring Gates Foundation executives into meetings with the sex offender, Gates said.
“I apologise to other people who are drawn into this because of the mistake that I made,” The Wall Street Journal quoted Gates as saying.
The philanthropist said he had met Epstein in 2011, three years after the sex offender had pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution.
Gates said he didn't “properly check” Epstein's background even when he was aware of some “18-month thing” that had limited Epstein’s travel and added that he continued meeting with Epstein even after his then-wife Melinda French Gates expressed concerns in 2013.
Speaking of his ex-wife, he added: “To give her credit, she was always kind of skeptical about the Epstein thing.”
The Wall Street Journal further said that Gates told staff on Tuesday that he continued meeting with Epstein through 2014, flew on a private jet with Epstein and spent time with him in Germany, France, New York and Washington. “I never stayed overnight,” he said, or visited Epstein’s island.
Gates admitted that his ties to Epstein and newly disclosed emails from the Justice Department files had cast a cloud over the Gates Foundation and its reputation, the newspaper said.
“It definitely is the opposite of the values of the Foundation and the goals of the Foundation,” he said. “And our work is very reputational sensitive. I mean, people can choose to work with us or not work with us.”
A Gates Foundation spokesperson said Gates holds town halls twice a year and he “spoke candidly, addressing several questions in detail, and took responsibility for his actions.”
The Microsoft co-founder said Epstein “talked about the kind of intimate relationship he had with a lot of billionaires, particularly Wall Street billionaires,” and that he could help raise money for causes like global health.
Gates said because Epstein had other prestigious people at these meetings, that “made it easier for me to feel like this was a normalized situation.” He said he realizes that his association with Epstein also helped the sex offender to burnish his reputation.
In the town hall, Gates also said: “I did have affairs, one with a Russian bridge player who met me at bridge events, and one with a Russian nuclear physicist who I met through business activities.”
Gates said that 2014 was the last year he met with Epstein.
Epstein, as per the US media reports, killed himself in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.
