March 16, 2008	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 7, 1429

PANAJI (India), March 15: The mother of a British teenage girl raped and killed in India’s Goa state was questioned by detectives on Saturday about her claims of a cover-up involving drug lords, top police and politicians.

Fiona MacKeown, whose eldest daughter Scarlett Keeling, 15, was found dead on Goa’s popular Anjuna beach on Feb 18, was questioned as a witness and not as a suspect, Goa police superintendent Bosco George said.

“We’d called her to record her statement as it’s important for us in this case. We wanted to clarify and know several things, especially because she had raised several doubts about the police investigation,” George said.

He denied media reports that MacKeown had been charged for negligence for leaving her daughter with strangers in Goa while she holidayed with her other children in neighbouring Karnataka state.

The teenager remained in Goa at the home of a 21-year-old local man.

Police on Thursday arrested a local barman Samson D’Souza, 29, and an alleged drug dealer Placido Carvalho as prime suspects in Keeling’s death.

Keeling was fed a lethal cocktail of drugs, raped and left on the beach where she was found dead.

When her bruised and partially naked body was found on the beach, police at first said she had drowned in the Arabian Sea.

But a second autopsy demanded by MacKeown prompted police to launch a murder probe after as many as 50 injuries were found on her body.

“Goa is a beautiful place and I love Goans,” MacKeown said, adding the incident had “brought shame” to India.

“To my mind good people don’t deserve an environment controlled by a drug mafia under the protection of few corrupt police officers and politicians,” she said.—AFP