Australian prosecutors filed manslaughter charges on Thursday against a pub bouncer who allegedly landed the fatal punch that killed cricketing legend David Hookes.
As Australian cricketers continued to mourn the death of the high-profile former Test batsman, lawyers for Zdravco Micevic (21) told the Melbourne Magistrates Court their client would plead not guilty to manslaughter and to the earlier charge of common assault, laid before Hookes died.
Defence lawyer Brian Rolfe said Micevic, a former champion amateur boxer, had been forced leave his home after receiving death threats since Hookes’s death on Monday.
”The publicity has led to the fact that my client has been receiving hate mail and death threats at his home,” Rolfe told the court.
”The media has camped outside his house 12 hours a day. His family has been forced to flee their own home.”
Hookes (48), who had been coaching the Victoria state cricket side, suffered massive head injuries when the bouncer allegedly struck him to the ground during a dispute in the Melbourne suburb of Saint Kilda late on Sunday.
He died a day later, leading to an outpouring of grief in cricket-mad Australia, with Prime Minister John Howard leading the tributes.
But magistrate Daniel Muling said the intense public interest in Hookes’s death should not prejudice the case.
”It’s in no one’s interest to have such proceedings damaged by unfair reporting or comment,” he said.
Local media have reported wildly contradictory versions of the events leading up to Hookes’s death.
The court extended Micevic’s bail and adjourned the case until April 13. — Sapa-AFP