Sydney: A judge has dismissed, Indian-origin doctor, Jayant Patel’s, accused of the man slaughter of three patients in Australia, application for a judge-only trial.
In a brief hearing on Tuesday that lasted less than a minute, Supreme Court judge James Douglas said he would publish the reasons for his decision.
According to the Courier Mail, Dr Patel was seeking a jury-less trial on the grounds of the enormous amount of adverse publicity the case attracted over many years.
A separate Supreme Court hearing is due tomorrow into a separate application by Dr Patel to have the charge of unlawfully killing former patient Mervyn Morris permanently stayed, the report said.
Dr Patel was sentenced to seven years' jail in July 2010 of three counts of manslaughter and one count of grievous bodily harm during operations at the Bundaberg Hospital, where he worked as a surgeon between 2003 and 2005.
ANI
First Published: Tuesday, November 27, 2012, 14:56