Melbourne, Aug 8: An Australian court will announce its verdict next week in the case of a 21-year-old Indian-origin medical student accused of murdering his father by strangling him and bashing him with a baseball bat.
Joshua Ravindran has pleaded not guilty to murdering his father, Ravi Ravindran, in the Blue Mountains suburb of Medlow Bath in April 2011.
The 48-year-old was found dead in a bedroom in the family home.
The New South Wales Supreme Court in Sydney has heard Ravindran told police his father had hung himself.
Crown prosecutor Terry Thorpe has told the court that Joshua, medical science student, strangled his father and bashed him with a baseball bat.
But the defence case is that Ravindran hit his father in the “agony of the moment” when he discovered the body on the floor.
Defence lawyer Steve Russell has argued the accused was close to his father and had no motive to kill him.
He has also told the court that police did not properly investigate the incident and assumptions were made from the outset.
Joshua's judge-alone trial has heard their father-son relationship was unusually close and that he was estranged from his mother for much of his upbringing. He told the court he considered his father to be “controlling”.
After hearing the arguments Justice Stephen Campbell reserved his decision until August 15.
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