Ex-minister acquitted of murder

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/south_asia/6958241.stm

Version 0 of 1.

A former Indian cabinet minister who was jailed for life for murdering his aide 12 years ago has been acquitted.

The high court in Delhi freed Shibu Soren after ruling that it had not been proved that a body in the case was that of the man said to have been killed.

The former federal coal minister was convicted and jailed in December 2006.

He denied abducting and murdering Shashinath Jha in 1994. Four others found guilty with him have also been acquitted.

Mr Soren, who resigned from his ministerial position following his conviction, is in Dumka jail in the eastern state of Jharkhand.

He is expected to be released in a day or two once legal formalities are completed.

Skeleton

During last year's trial, prosecutors argued that Shashinath Jha was killed after allegedly blackmailing the minister over bribe-taking.

Mr Soren always pleaded his innocence and appealed against his conviction.

On Wednesday, the Delhi high court said prosecutors had never proved conclusively that the skeleton exhumed in the case was that of Shashinath Jha.

Mr Jha's family say they will now appeal against the acquittal of the politician in the Supreme Court.

Mr Soren was the first Indian cabinet minister to be convicted of murder, and his case was seen as one of a number of recent examples of the country's elite being brought to justice.

The sentencing of a leader of a party allied to the governing Congress party was also a major embarrassment for the Indian government.

Bail

Mr Jha, who was the former minister's private secretary, went missing in May 1994.

A body, which prosecutors claimed was his, was later found in Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand - Mr Soren's home state.

Federal investigators said Mr Jha was killed because he knew that bribes had been paid to four erstwhile members of Mr Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha party for voting against a no-confidence motion in the then Congress government of PV Narasimha Rao, in July 1993.

In 2004, Soren quit the coal portfolio over charges that he had incited violence during a tribal protest in 1975 in which at least 10 people died.

He went on the run but handed himself in to police and was freed on bail, later rejoining the government.