HARARE - A lawyer representing Zimbabwean football legend Peter Ndlovu has announced his client “categorically denies” culpable homicide charges being levelled against him, but says he “saw it coming.”

The troubled ex-Warriors captain briefly appeared before the Victoria Falls Magistrate Court yesterday facing culpable homicide charges emanating from a fatal car crash which killed his brother Adam and a female passenger, Nomcele Tshili, near Victoria Falls in December.

Peter was driving his BMW X5 when it veered off the road after one of its front tyres burst, ploughing into three huge trees and killing Adam and Tshili on the spot.

The most-capped Zimbabwean player of all time, who was left battling for his life and is now on the path to full recovery, was remanded out of custody pending the commencement of trial on March 19.

“He was warned and cautioned on two accounts of culpable homicide as a direct result of an accident which led to the death of his brother and a woman known as Tshili,” Ndlovu’s lawyer Harrison Nkomo told the Daily News yesterday.

“He has been formally charged. He appeared in court today and was remanded to the 19th of March on fee fail.

“It is as a direct result of lack of intention on his part that he is being charged with culpable homicide. If the state was of the view that it (the accident) was intentional, we would have been talking of murder. The state accepts he did not have the intention of killing his brother and the lady.”

Nkomo added that the charges against Ndlovu were not unusual, saying:

“The police in this country have got right to press charges against a person on the basis that there exist reasonable suspicion that they committed a crime. We saw it coming from the day the accident occurred.

“The law of the land stipulates that where there is loss of life the court must inquire into the circumstances, whether it was negligence or intention. There is nothing usual about it. Negligence is a criminal offence, but we categorically deny that there was negligence.”