Man found guilty of rape and murder of Irish backpacker

A man has been found guilty of the rape and murder of an Irish woman backpacking in India.

Danielle McLaughlin, 28, from County Donegal, was found dead in a field in the western state of Goa in March 2017.

Vikat Bhagat was found guilty at the District and Sessions Court in south Goa, India, on Friday.

A post-mortem examination found brain damage and strangulation as the cause of death.

In a statement afterwards, Danielle's mother Andrea Brannigan and her sister Joleen McLaughlin Brannigan, said justice "has finally been achieved".

"There was no other suspect or gang involved in Danielle's death and Bhagat was solely responsible for cruelly ending her beautiful life," they said.

The family said they have "endured what has been effectively" an eight-year murder trial with many delays and problems.

The "quest for truth" has been "very tiring" and family said they "are glad it is over".

"We are content now with the judicial confirmation in public of what we already sadly knew," they added.

The family said "in memory of Danielle", they had stayed "patient and respectful of the Indian legal system".

"We are glad to have visited the area where Danielle spent her last days on this earth, painful and difficult as that was," the statement continued.

"We now hope that not only that Danielle can rest in peace but that we, as a family, can have some peace and comfort knowing that the person who brutally raped and murdered our precious Danielle has been convicted."

Rape victims cannot usually be named under Indian law. Their identities are often hidden in a bid to protect them from being shunned in society.

In this case, Danielle McLaughlin's family have spoken to the media to raise awareness of her case.

Ms McLaughlin, who grew up in Buncrana, had travelled to India in February 2017.

She was there for two weeks before she was murdered..

The Liverpool John Moores University student had been staying in a beach hut with an Australian friend.

The pair had been celebrating Holi, a Hindu festival, in a nearby village.

She left the village at night and her body was found the next day by a local farmer in an isolated spot.

Ms McLaughlin, who had dual Irish and British citizenship, travelled to India using a British passport.

In 2018, the then Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Leo Varadkar met and apologised to her family after a misunderstanding about her citizenship.

Her body was brought home to Donegal with the help of the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust.

She is buried in her hometown of Buncrana in the Republic of Ireland.