Kerala MLA Antony Raju jailed for tampering evidence in 1990 drug case
Kerala MLA and former minister Antony Raju has been sentenced to three years in jail for tampering with evidence in a decades-old drug smuggling case.
Back in 1990, Australian national Andrew Salvatore Cervelli was caught at Thiruvananthapuram Airport with hashish hidden in his underwear.
Raju, then a junior lawyer, was found guilty of criminal conspiracy and altering key court evidence—the underwear itself—to help Cervelli's defense.
How the tampering was uncovered—and what happened next
Cervelli was acquitted after a court test showed the seized underwear didn't fit him, raising suspicions.
Investigators later discovered that the underwear had been altered to be smaller while in Raju's custody, with forensic tests confirming the changes.
After years of legal twists—including a Supreme Court order to speed things up—Raju and court clerk K S Jose were both convicted this month.
As Raju's sentence is over two years, he's now disqualified from the Kerala Assembly and has lost his seat, closing one of Kerala's most talked-about political cases.