Azhagiri acquitted in murder case for lack of reliable evidence

CHITTOOR: In a major relief for Tamil Nadu's first family, a court here acquitted Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's son M K Azhagiri on Thursday and 12 others in a murder case for lack of reliable evidence.
   
In a brief judgement, Sessions Judge P Durga Prasad dismissed the murder case filed by the Tamil Nadu police, charging Azhagiri and 12 of his associates with "abetting and executing" the murder of former DMK Minister T Kiruttinan on May 20, 2003, observing that there was "no reliable evidence" to connect the accused to the crime.
   
Kiruttinan was murdered near his house while he was returning from his morning walk.
   
Azhagiri, along with others, was arrested two days after the murder in the state.
   
After the verdict was pronounced in Chittoor court, Azhagiri said that his stand that the case was foisted against him by the then AIADMK government had been vindicated.
   
A large number of DMK supporters, who gathered in the court premises, raised slogans in support of Karunanidhi and Azhagiri.
    
The Supreme court transferred the trial of the case to the sessions court here after witnesses turned hostile at a Madurai Court and T Ramaiah, brother of Kiruttinan, moved the apex court seeking shift of the trial outside Tamil Nadu.
    
He had alleged prosecution witnesses were being intimidated.
    
Azhagiri, who has a political base in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu, was accused of murdering Kiruttinan, a staunch supporter of Azhagiri's younger brother M K Stalin, in a factional feud.