BHUBANESHWAR, India - A prosecution witness on Thursday identified four suspects he said had set an Australian missionary's vehicle on fire, killing him and his two young sons three years ago.
Those identified included Dara Singh, the key suspect among a total of 14 men standing trial on murder charges. They can be hanged if convicted.
Raghunath Dehuri, 40, told Judge Mahendranath Patnaik that the four were part of a mob that attacked two vehicles parked in front of the village church at Manoharpur, 235 kilometers (145 miles) north of eastern Orissa state's capital, Bhubaneshwar in January, 1999.
He came out of his house near the church after hearing a banging sound, Dehuri said.
The four men set the two vehicles on fire, including the one in which Christian missionary Graham Stewart Staines and his children were sleeping, Dehuri said.
He said he watched the attack for nearly 30 minutes.
Dehuri rejected the defense accusation that he was lying and had had identified the suspects after seeing their photographs printed on posters by the Central Bureau of Investigation, India's federal investigating agency.
The investigating agency had distributed the posters in Manoharpur and neighboring areas after the murder to seek local residents' help in nabbing the suspects.
"I had no knowledge about the posters," Dehuri said.