JODHPUR, India: An Indian court on Wednesday acquitted Bollywood superstar Salman Khan of using unlicensed firearms to kill protected wildlife almost two decades ago.
Khan, 51, has now been acquitted in three out of four cases filed against him for hunting rare black bucks, a native species of antelope, while shooting a film in the northwestern state of Rajasthan in 1998.
Sporting dark sunglasses, Khan was in court to hear the verdict as hundreds of police deployed outside tried to keep the crowds of fans under control.
“He was charged under two sections of the Arms Act and he has been cleared in both,” Hastimal Saraswat, a defense lawyer, told reporters outside the court in Jodhpur city.
“He was acquitted due to lack of conclusive evidence.”
While pronouncing the acquittal, magistrate Dalpat Singh Rajpurohit said the prosecution could not prove that Khan possessed and used fire arms with expired license.
Prosecution counsel B. S. Bhati said they would appeal the verdict after studying the 102-page order. The actor still faces a fourth case on charges of poaching black bucks.
Khan, known for playing a tough guy in Hindi films, had accused the state forest department of framing him in the case.
Shortly after Wednesday’s verdict, Khan thanked his fans for their “support and good wishes” on Twitter where he has 21.1 million followers.
The actor is one of the Indian movie industry’s biggest draws and has starred in more than 100 films and television shows.
Last year his movie “Sultan,” in which he played an aging wrestler, smashed Bollywood’s box office records.
But Khan is no stranger to controversy and in 2015 he was cleared in another long-running case of killing a homeless man in a hit-and-run crash.
That decision is now being challenged in the Supreme Court.
Indian courts can often take years — and sometimes decades — to pronounce verdicts.
Bollywood’s Salman Khan cleared in weapons case
Bollywood’s Salman Khan cleared in weapons case
Vince Zampella, video game pioneer behind ‘Call of Duty,’ dies at 55
Vince Zampella, one of the creators behind such best-selling video games as “Call of Duty,” has died. He was 55.
Video game company Electronic Arts said Zampella died Sunday. The company did not disclose a cause of death.
In 2010, Zampella founded Respawn Entertainment, a subsidiary of EA, and he also was the former chief executive of video game developer Infinity Ward, the studio behind the successful “Call of Duty” franchise.
A spokesperson for Electronic Arts said in a statement on Monday that Zampella’s influence on the video game industry was “profound and far-reaching.”
“A friend, colleague, leader and visionary creator, his work helped shape modern interactive entertainment and inspired millions of players and developers around the world. His legacy will continue to shape how games are made and how players connect for generations to come,” a company spokesperson wrote.
One of Zampella’s crowning achievements was the creation of the Call of Duty franchise, which has sold more than half a billion games worldwide,
The first person shooter game debuted in 2003 as a World War II simulation and has sold over 500 million copies globally. Subsequent versions have delved into modern warfare and there is a live-action movie based on the game in production with Paramount Pictures.
In recent years, Zampella has been at the helm of the creation of the action adventure video games Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
