Guilty of hit-and-run in Melbourne, Indian national Puneet Puneet, who fled to India on a friend's passport insists he is not a murderer and the accident which killed 19-year-old Queensland student, Dean Hoftsee was 'unintentional', reports.
Puneet Puneet appeared at New Delhi's Patiala House Court on Wednesday where a hearing on his extradition to Australia was scheduled.
reporter present in New Delhi spoke to Puneet outside the Delhi courtroom where he allegedly said, “Whatever happened in 2008 was unintentional, it is just an accident.”
“I didn’t kill him deliberately, it was merely an accident.
He also said, he was 'not a murderer' and wanted Australia to drop the case and let him live freely.
Puneet reportedly also told the reporter that he had said 'sorry' to Hoftsee's family and if that made a difference, he was 'ready to say sorry a thousand times more'.
Puneet was allegedly drunk when the car he was driving crashed into two pedestrians, both students from Queensland. The crash killed a 19-year-old student Dean Hofstee and injured another friend 20-year-old Clancy Coker on that night in October 2008.
Puneet awaited sentencing for culpable driving causing death and negligently causing injury, when he used a friend’s passport and fled to India in 2009. He remained in hiding in India for four years before he was arrested by the Indian police in Patiala district in 2013.
The next hearing has now been scheduled on July 7 by Magistrate Jyoti Kyler after Puneet's defence counsel could not come to the court.
