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 Friday pending an appeal,
according to reports.
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.
But on Friday, lawyers for Khan argued to Mumbai’s High Court that
their client’s conviction should be overturned. The court agreed to
suspend the sentence until an appeal is heard, according to Indian
television networks NDTV and CNN-IBN.
The decision means the actor’s jail sentence does not take effect, the reports said.
On Wednesday, a judge found Khan guilty of all charges, including
driving while under the influence of alcohol and without a licence.
Judge D.W. Deshpande rejected Khan’s claim that his driver was to blame
and sentenced the 49-year-old to five years in prison, later granting
the star bail ahead of Friday’s hearing.
During the trial the defence claimed that Khan had been drinking
water and had climbed out of the car through the driver’s seat after the
accident because the passenger side door had been damaged.
But several prosecution witnesses, including 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 in September 2002.
Khan is the second big-name Bollywood actor to be sentenced 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.
Khan has starred in more than 100 films and television shows since
his first hit "Maine Pyar Kiya" (I Fell in Love) in the 1980s.
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