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NEW DELHI, Aug 12, 2008 (AFP) - An Indian court handed down the death penalty to two taxi drivers for the rape and murder of an Australian woman who visited India four years ago for a meditation course, reports said Tuesday.
Dawn Griggs, 59, was killed soon after hiring a taxi following her arrival at New Delhi airport in March 2004.
"The victim in the present case was a foreigner lady, who was totally dependent on the hospitality provided to her by our people," Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Kumar was quoted as saying in his order.
"She was totally defenceless and unprotected," the Press Trust of India quoted the court as saying on Monday.
"In our case, the victim was of such an age that she should have been seen by the convicts as a motherly figure," the judge said.
Griggs, a frequent traveller to India, had asked the taxi drivers to take her to her destination, but instead was driven to a deserted stretch near the airport where she was murdered.
The court said the Australian woman had struggled against her assailants before being raped and stabbed to death. She was also attacked with a screwdriver.
India's Supreme Court stipulates that the death penalty be used only in the "rarest of rare cases."
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