20-year-old pleads guilty to attack on Indian-origin doctor

MELBOURNE: A 20-year old Australian accused of involvement in an attack on a leading Indian-origin doctor here last year pleaded guilty, becoming the second person to admit his crime in the incident that sent the victim into coma.

Mukesh Haikerwal, former president of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) was attacked by a gang in September last year when he was walking in a park in Melbourne, leaving him with a fractured skull.

Alfer Azzopardi, 20, pleaded guilty to a total of 41 charges involving a series of armed robberies, attempted armed robberies and assaults around Melbourne.

While he pleaded guilty to charges of intentionally causing serious injury and armed robbery on Haikerwal, he will contest the exact circumstances of his role in those offences, the Age newspaper said.

Forty-two charges against him will be withdrawn, the paper said.

Haikerwal was kicked and punched while he lay on the ground and then struck on the head with a baseball bat.

The doctor, who suffered two blood clots in his brain and a fractured skull, underwent emergency surgery and was in a state of coma for sometime.

He remained in hospital and had rehabilitation at Epworth Hospital for about eight weeks.

-PTI