Trial Court To Pronounce Verdict In Kerala Nun Rape Case On 14 January

A Court in Kottayam, Kerala today concluded the hearing and reserved its verdict in the case of alleged rape of a nun by Bishop Franco Mulakkal.

The Additional Sessions Court is likely to pronounce the judgment on January 14. The trial in the case had started in November 2019.

The rape case against the Bishop was registered by police in Kottayam district in 2018.

In her complaint to the police in June 2018, the nun had alleged that she was subjected to sexual abuse by Franco, then Bishop of the Jalandhar diocese of Roman Catholic Church, between 2014 and 2016.

The Special Investigation team which probed the case arrested the Bishop and charged him with wrongful confinement, rape, unnatural sex and criminal intimidation.

The Court had restrained the print and electronic media from publishing any matter relating to the trial in the case without its permission.

The Chargesheet filed by the Police is around a thousand pages with 83 witnesses, including 11 priests and 24 nuns. The Prosecution examined 39 of the said witnesses.