Friday, June 06, 2008

No male DNA found in Scarlett swab

No male DNA found in Scarlett swab
Preetu Nair | TNN

Panaji: The Goa police request to subject Samson D'Souza, the main accused in the Scarlett Keeling rape and murder case, to narco analysis, brain signature profiling and psychological evaluation tests, including polygraph, has been rejected by the children's court.
The court questioned the constitutional validity of such scientific tests to which an accused has not consented and turned down the police request as they had failed to disclose reasons for the tests.
The police had requested the tests almost a month after Samson's arrest on March 9, 2008.
"Even to allow the police to take an accused for such tests, there should at least be a whisper in the application that the accused, who had been in police custody for 15 days, had not co-operated with the investigations and without the said scientific tests the prosecution is left without any clue," the Children's Court president Desmond D'Costa said.
Meanwhile, more evidence has come to light about the report submitted by Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Hyderabad. TOI had reported on Wednesday that swab samples taken from Scarlett's mouth and vagina had tested negative for the presence of semen.
It is now learnt that the police had not only sent samples of Scarlett's vaginal, buccal and anal swabs and smear slides, pubic hair and her clothes, but also the urethral swabs and smear slides and pubic hair of both the accused, Samson and Placido Carvalho aka Shana Boy. Besides, samples of sand, sea water and pieces of Scarlett's liver and lungs were sent for examination to Hyderabad on March 19, 2008.
"The report has revealed that neither semen nor blood could be detected in Scarlett's vaginal, buccal or anal swabs or smear slides. Semen was not detected in the samples of her pubic hair," said a top police official, on conditions of anonymity.
The official also said that according to the report, there was no trace of male DNA in Scarlett's vaginal, buccal or anal swabs.

June 5,2008, The Times of India, Goa edition

No comments: