NEW DELHI: A Bollywood superstar and a former senior judge on Sunday urged India’s top court to consider sparing the life of a convicted bomb plotter due to be hanged this week.

Actor Salman Khan found himself at the center of a controversy after saying Yakub Memon, the man on death row for the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai, should not be hanged. However, he retracted his comments later and offered an unconditional apology, saying he never implied that the 1993 Mumbai blasts case convict was innocent.

The 49-year-old superstar, no stranger to controversies, said he had complete faith in the judicial system of the country. “I would like to unconditionally apologize for any misunderstanding I may have created unintentionally. “I have not said or implied that Yakub Memon is innocent. I have complete faith in the judicial system of our country,” the actor tweeted after his remarks triggered criticism and protests.

Yakub’s brother, Tiger Memon, the main accused in the case and who is absconding, should be sent to the gallows, the Bollywood actor had said.

The Supreme Court is expected on Monday to hear a last-ditch appeal from Yakub Memon. The court had last week rejected a final appeal from Memon, paving the way for his execution on Thursday after more than two decades in jail.

But his lawyers lodged the last-minute appeal, saying his execution date of July 30 had been set unlawfully back in April, before all legal avenues to appeal were exhausted. Salman Khan, a hugely popular actor who was himself convicted in May of a deadly hit-and-run accident, earlier in tweets described Memon as innocent.

The actor’s tweets let loose a storm of protests, with his father, noted screenwriter Salim Khan, being among them. “He (Salman) should not say anything about these kind of serious topics without any knowledge...” Salim Khan said.

Meanwhile, a former Supreme Court judge, Harjit Singh Bedi, also said the court should take notice of reports Memon had cooperated with investigators and returned voluntarily from Pakistan where he fled after the blasts.