Indian Court Suspends Bollywood Star Khan's.. by _ShAnE_StArK_ 2015/05/12 06:58
MUMBAI: Bollywood superstar
Salman Khan's five-year prison
sentence for killing a homeless man
with his SUV after a night out drinking 13 years
ago was suspended on Friday (May 8) pending
an appeal.
The actor was on Wednesday found guilty at a
sessions court of culpable homicide and other
charges for driving his vehicle into a group of
homeless men sleeping rough in suburban
Mumbai in 2002.
He was convicted of all charges, including
driving while under the influence of alcohol and
without a licence, and was sentenced to five
years in prison but released on bail for two
days.
On Friday, lawyers for 49-year-old Khan argued
at the city's High Court that their client's
conviction should be overturned.
Judge Abhay Thipsay ruled the sentence would
be suspended until an appeal was heard,
expected to be in July, and set new bail terms
for the film icon.
"The defence has raised pertinent points about
the evidence presented by the prosecution
which need consideration," the judge said.
"Also, the points based on which the culpable
homicide conviction was passed needs
examination," he added.
"It is not a case where the applicant is likely to
abscond and both parties have no objection to
hearing an appeal in a fast manner so the
sentence is suspended until an appeal is
disposed."
FRESH BAIL
The judge told a packed courtroom that the
multi-millionaire, who was not present at
Friday's hearing, must post bail of 30,000
rupees (US*468).
Khan's lawyer Amit Desai said: "The
prosecution has not established beyond doubt
that it was my client who was driving that
night."
Khan's trial began in earnest last year after a
series of court hearings and lengthy legal hold-
ups.
During the proceedings, Khan's defence team
had argued the actor's driver was to blame for
the September 2002 hit-and-run which killed
one man and injured several others after
mounting the pavement in the suburb of Bandra
West.
They claimed the actor had been drinking water
and had climbed out of the car through the
driver's side after the accident as the
passenger side door had been damaged.
But Judge D W Deshpande on Wednesday
rejected the claim after survivors of the crash
testified that Khan was driving the vehicle when
it ploughed at speed into the men sleeping on
the street near a bakery.
One of the sleeping labourers injured in the
accident said in his statement that "Salman was
so drunk he fell".
The body-building actor is no stranger to
controversy and spent more than a week behind
bars for killing an endangered Indian gazelle in
1998. He has starred in more than 100 films and
television shows since his first hit "Maine Pyar
Kiya" (I Fell in Love) in the 1980s.
Khan had become the second big-name
Bollywood actor to be sentenced to jail in the
last two years. Sanjay Dutt, the star of a series
of gangster movies, is behind bars over
possession of weapons linked to several
bombings in Mumbai in 1993.
The High Court is to reconvene again on Jun 15
to set a date for the appeal hearing...