Vikat Bhagat has been sentenced to life in prison in India after being found guilty last week of the 2017 rape and murder of Co Donegal woman Danielle McLaughlin.
Bhagat, 31, has been handed two "rigorous" life imprisonments and to pay a fine for the rape and murder of McLaughlin.
He has additionally been handed a three-year imprisonment for destruction of evidence.
The sentences of imprisonment for life shall run concurrently, Additional Sessions Judge Kshama Joshi said in the order, according to The Indian Express on Monday.
Bhagat, who has already served seven years in prison, is set to appeal his sentence.
Speaking after Monday's sentencing, Vikram Varma, an advocate in Goa for Danielle McLaughlin's family, told reporters that the family "seems to be satisfied" with the result, adding that "they believe justice has been done and the sentencing has been done in accordance to the crime."
Adv vikram varma briefing regarding the final judgement on the rape and murder of an Irish tourist in Canacona in 2017. pic.twitter.com/yjB1LE2Xe4
— Goa News Hub (@goanewshub) February 17, 2025
On March 14, 2017, the body of 28-year-old Danielle McLaughlin was discovered by a farmer in a field in Canacona, a popular tourist area in South Goa in India.
Born in Glasgow and raised in Buncrana in Co Donegal, Danielle was a dual British-Irish citizen who entered India on her British passport in February 2017.
In the lead-up to her murder, Danielle had traveled to Goa with an Australian female friend and the pair were staying in a beach hut. They had been celebrating the Hindu spring festival Holi at a nearby village.
Danielle's body was found "lying in a pool of blood without clothes and there were injuries on the head and face", Deputy Superintendent of Police Sammy Tavares said at the time. He later said that a post-mortem confirmed that the Irish woman "was raped before the murder."
Bhagat, who was arrested the day after Danielle's body was discovered, confessed to the rape and murder. He was convicted on Friday, February 14.
On Monday, solicitor for the McLaughlin family Desmond Doherty told BBC Radio Foyl'es North West Today programme that Danielle's mother Andrea Brannigan's "passion for justice and her dignity has now been well rewarded."
Doherty said Brannigan was in India for Monday's sentencing and was set to fly back to Ireland tonight.
He said: "But the lady has achieved what she set out to achieve, which is a real success.
"She stayed with the process and many people would simply walk from it or just give up completely, but she stayed with it.
"She respected the Indian legal process, difficult as it was and that has now worked in her favor to show her respect to a legal system that is foreign to her."
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