Edinburgh: The probe into the death of an Indian Catholic priest in Scotland remains incomplete as detectives have failed to locate his mobile phone.
Father Martin Xavier Vazhachira’s body was found on a beach in Edinburgh on June 23, three days after he went missing. His phone was still ringing in the three days, but the police could not find the device on the body. The phone could not be found neither on the beach nor inside the priest’s room.
The investigators in charge of the case need to address this gap before they submit their report to the fiscal officer, who has to take a call on releasing the body to relatives. The whole process may take another week, detectives have told Father Tebin Francis Puthanpurakkal, who liaisons with the authorities in Edinburgh on behalf of the Kerala-based Carmelite of Mary Immaculate congregation.
The detectives said they were collecting the details of the calls made through Father Vazhachira’s phone in his last days. The police have already examined the priest’s laptop and footage from surveillance cameras, but have not come across any significant leads.
Father Vazhachira’s congregation and family were expecting to receive his body in July first week as the postmortem and pathology tests were already complete. The Indian consulate in Edinburgh and the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh are coordinating with the local authorities to speed up the proceedings.
(source: manoramaonline)