Three Keralites in Kuwait sentenced to life imprisonment

Kuwait City: Three Keralites have been sentenced with life-term imprisonment in a murder case in Kuwait. Ajith Agustine, Thufail, and Tijo Thomas -all hailing from Kozhikode- were punished by the Supreme Court here for strangulating a Philippine woman to death.

The court mentioned that the convicts who were earlier acquitted by a lower court do not deserve even a bail.

The incident related to the case happened in 2014, in which a fire broke out in a multi-storeyed building near a Pakistani School at Farvaniya. The Philipine woman was found dead inside the building. Though it was thought to be a death due to asphyxiation, the post-mortem report proved the assumption to be false.

Forensic examination proved that the woman was strangulated to death prior to the fire in the building. The bank card and civil ID found in the building led the investigation to the convicts.

Ajith Augustine, the first accused, according to the reports, had borrowed a lump sum amount of money from the Philippine woman who had the business of money lending. When Ajith could not pay back the money on the fixed date, he planned to kill her and burn the flat to destroy the evidence. He called two of his friends to help him to do the heinous crime.

However, a criminal court and a lower court had acquitted the three after judging that the prosecution could not prove the murder. The trio left the country after the lower court acquitted them.