<p>According to The Age, the court on Friday heard the case of Riyaz Khoja who was driving a friend’s car when it smashed into a power pole.<br /><br />During the hearing in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court, police officer Robert Hay said Khoja drank beer at a park before he drove the five others into the city to buy more alcohol. Khoja then sped along Lygon Street at “a minimum speed of 114 km/hr” when he lost control of the car.<br /><br />Hay said the force of the impact “almost tore the car into two”, killing 22-year-old Nihil Patel. He said none of the four injured passengers in the back seat were wearing seat belts.<br />Police officers found Khoja had a blood-alcohol content of 0.76 soon after the accident.<br />The court heard that Khoja had received 21 driving infringement notices while working as a taxi driver, and all of them remained unpaid despite the accused agreeing to a payment plan with the sherriff’s office.<br /><br />In granting Khoja bail, Magistrate Gail Hubble said that, while the risk of flight was “there and troubling, it is not an unacceptable risk”.“He is a foreign national, he faces a jail term and that provides motivation for him to go home, but I can’t deny bail just because he is a foreign national,” Magistrate Hubble told the court.Khoja was ordered to surrender his passport.He will report to police three times a week until he returns to court on March 10, 2011.</p>
<p>According to The Age, the court on Friday heard the case of Riyaz Khoja who was driving a friend’s car when it smashed into a power pole.<br /><br />During the hearing in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court, police officer Robert Hay said Khoja drank beer at a park before he drove the five others into the city to buy more alcohol. Khoja then sped along Lygon Street at “a minimum speed of 114 km/hr” when he lost control of the car.<br /><br />Hay said the force of the impact “almost tore the car into two”, killing 22-year-old Nihil Patel. He said none of the four injured passengers in the back seat were wearing seat belts.<br />Police officers found Khoja had a blood-alcohol content of 0.76 soon after the accident.<br />The court heard that Khoja had received 21 driving infringement notices while working as a taxi driver, and all of them remained unpaid despite the accused agreeing to a payment plan with the sherriff’s office.<br /><br />In granting Khoja bail, Magistrate Gail Hubble said that, while the risk of flight was “there and troubling, it is not an unacceptable risk”.“He is a foreign national, he faces a jail term and that provides motivation for him to go home, but I can’t deny bail just because he is a foreign national,” Magistrate Hubble told the court.Khoja was ordered to surrender his passport.He will report to police three times a week until he returns to court on March 10, 2011.</p>