Bollywood actor Salman Khan, faces trail in Mumbai Court convicted of driving over sleeping homeless men 12 years ago, killing one of them.
Salman Khan, is accused of losing control of his SUV after a night of drinking rum and cocktails at an upmarket bar in in 2002 and fleeing the scene.After of court hearings and legal hold-ups, a judge in Mumbai is on Wednesday finally expected to deliver on the 49-year-old actor on charges of culpable homicide. Khan faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty following a trial whose every twist has been followed by the country’s media. Public prosecutor Pradeep Gharat said he had presented the as best he could to the Bombay sessions court judge, adding “we can only hope but cannot predict” a conviction. “I am 100% confident that I have done my job and duty to the best of my ability,” Gharat said on Monday. Salman pleaded not guilty at trial, saying his driver was responsible for the late night crash in which his Toyota Land Cruiser mounted the pavement where five men were outside a bakery in the upmarket suburb of Bandra West. A constable attached to Khan’s security detail said in his statement to police that the drunk lost control of the car while driving at about 90 kilometres an hour.”The people were sleeping on the footpath. and (his cousin) Kamaal ran away from the spot,” the constable, who died in 2007 of tuberculosis, said. One of the sleeping labourers injured in the accident said in his statement that “Salman was so drunk he fell. He stood but he fell again and then he… ran away. “But Khan’s lawyers said the action and romantic comedy star had in fact been drinking water all evening and had climbed out of the driver’s seat after the accident because the passenger side door had been damaged ”
