Murderer of missionary, sons receives death sentence in India

BHUBANESWAR, India - An Indian court sentenced one man to death by hanging and 12 others to life in prison Monday for killing a Christian missionary from Australia and his two young sons in a mob attack. Graham Staines and his sons Philip, 10, and Timothy, 8, were killed in January 1999, when a Hindu mob burned their jeep while they slept outside a church in Manoharpur, a tribal village in eastern Orissa state. The chief defendant in the case, Dara Singh, was sentenced to death. Singh does not want to appeal the verdict, said his defense lawyer Bana Mohanty. "Singh says he will prefer to be hanged rather than go in for an appeal," Mohanty said. Mohanty had earlier said all the 13 convicts would appeal the court judgment. The murder of Staines and his sons was one of the worst hate crimes against Christians in recent years in India, where more than 80 percent of the 1 billion-plus population are Hindus. Christians make up about 2 percent of the population. Staines' widow, Gladys, said she has "forgiven the killers." "I have no bitterness because forgiveness brings healing and our land needs healing from hatred and violence. Forgiveness and the consequences of the crime should not be mixed up," she said in a statement in Baripada, a town in Orissa state where she is running a leprosy home started by her husband. She plans to start a hospital in Baripada, 60 miles west of Manoharpur where her husband and two children were burned to death. Graham Staines had lived in Baripada since early 1950s. One of the 12 others given life sentences reportedly said earlier that the killers were provoked by the "corruption of tribal culture" by the missionaries, who allegedly fed villagers beef and gave women bras and sanitary napkins. Hindus worship the cow and forbid the eating of beef. "I did this because of the bitter relations with the Christians," Mahendra Hembram was quoted as saying by The Hindustan Times on Sunday in a letter to his sister-in-law. "After hearing so many things about the Christians, we decided to kill the Christians," he said in the letter, written while he was on the run before being arrested. The killings came at a time when Hindu nationalist groups were being blamed for a series of attacks on Christians and church property. The Home Ministry said a large number of those cases were related to land and property disputes, not religion.