Death penalty for missionary killer

Dara Singh is expected to appeal

An Indian court has handed down a death sentence to the ringleader of a group of men convicted of murdering an Australian missionary and his two young sons.

Twelve others received life imprisonment for burning Graham Staines alive, along with his sons - Philip, who was 10, and Timothy, eight.

The court found them guilty last week of rioting, arson and culpable homicide amounting to murder.

Hundreds of police were deployed outside churches in Orissa ahead of sentencing.

The prosecutors had pushed for the death sentence by hanging, but defence lawyers had asked for a lenient sentence on the grounds that the men were poor tribesmen and the sole earners in their families.

All 13 will lodge an appeal against their sentence.

The Staines were burnt alive

The death penalty is used rarely in India and is reserved for the most serious crimes.

Defendants have the right to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court and can then ask for a presidential pardon.

Mr Staines had spent 30 years working with leprosy patients in Orissa.

His widow, Gladys, still lives in India, continuing the work, and says she has forgiven the killers.

"I have no bitterness because forgiveness brings healing and our land needs healing from hatred and violence," she said in a statement.

"But forgiveness and the consequences of the crime should not be mixed up... No individual is above the law of the land."

The missionary's brother John Staines had argued against a death sentence, fearing it would stir up more extremism.

"They committed a terrible crime, but the sort of thing that Jesus Christ espoused was that if we can't forgive our fellow men then how can he forgive us," he said in Melbourne, Australia.

Jeep torched

The Staines died when the jeep they were sleeping in was torched outside a church in the remote village of Manoharpur in Orissa in January 1999.

I did this because of the bitter relations with the Christians Mahendra Gebram

The killings sparked condemnation in India and around the world.

Right-wing Hindus who complained that Hindus were being pressured to convert to Christianity were blamed at the time of the attack.

However, an official inquiry into the attack said there was no evidence organised Hindu groups were behind it.

One of the convicted men has been quoted as saying he was provoked by the "corruption of tribal culture" by the missionaries.

"I did this because of the bitter relations with the Christians," Mahendra Hembram was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times in a letter to his sister-in-law.

Two years ago, a boy was convicted in relation to the killings and sentenced to seven years in a juvenile home.

The accused men have been on trial for the past two and a half years.

Dara Singh is also accused of organising attacks on a Muslim businessman and Roman Catholic priest after the Staines were killed.

Police believe villagers helped him hide for a year out of sympathy with his campaign against Muslims and Christians.