A Pre-trial Televised Murder Confession That Confirms The Eventual Verdict

For some time, this had been a terrible murder story confined mostly to south coast media. Now, it is everywhere. The Telegraph:

Trevor and Hilary Foster fought a five-and-a-half year battle for justice for their eldest child after Maninder Pal Singh Kohli fled to India…

…as they tearfully spoke of their relief that he was behind bars in Britain, they railed against a life sentence which could see him released in 22 years…

…On March 14, 2003, Kohli bundled Hannah [Foster] into his van, raped her, strangled her and dumped her in brambles on the outskirts of Southampton…

…Much to the agony of the Fosters, he publicly confessed to the crime on Indian television – a fact kept from the jury – but did everything he could to fight being brought back to Britain…

The on-air confession was not just kept from the jury: owing to a media blackout in Britain after he had offered it in India, no one at all here saw it.  The portion of the interview where four years ago he admits precisely what he did, was aired finally last night on the BBC.  The original interview was on India’s NDTV (New Delhi TV).

Curiously, the Telegraph report includes these written excerpts from the Indian police interrogation, and mistakenly appear to assert they were made in the NDTV interview, which they were not:

…”She was crossing the road when I was coming out, she was very pretty. I went to my car, took a U-turn and abducted her. I took her to a deserted place and raped her.

“I told her I felt very, very guilty. (But) she threatened to turn me in and tell her parents. Scared, for I know Asians would never be forgiven such a crime in England, I held her head from the back and I strangled her.”…

Given that the jury didn’t know of that TV confession, also didn’t buy into his absolutely ludicrous last-minute defense, and arrived at a verdict independently, there is no doubt now.  If he does get out in “22 years,” whatever happens he will indeed, as he himself noted, eventually face “his god.”  He has one last hope in that department: presumably “Asians” are treated more leniently by theirs?

Moreover, astonishingly, the Telegraph also noted:

…After more than 100 hearings, the 41-year-old sandwich delivery man and gambling addict became the first person to be extradited from India to the UK…

If true, that is amazing.  And, if you think about it, in our now globalized world of easy travel, that is also more than a bit terrifying.  Indian criminals could commit crimes here (even murder) and flee to India and not face repatriation for trial and incarceration?

Hopefully, with the now jailed Mr Kohli, that era is at an end.