The driver of a truck, involved in an accident which caused the death of four young skiers from the Briançon Serre-Chevalier club (Hautes-Alpes) in January 2019, was released on Monday, we learned from concordant sources. The Gap court followed the requisitions of the prosecution, the latter told AFP, who had asked for release during the hearing on January 16.
Four young skiers aged 17 to 20 were killed and two others aged 20 injured, at dawn on February 16, 2019, in a collision between their minivan and a truck in Saint-Chaffrey, near Briançon. They had spent the night together to celebrate the 20th birthday of one of them.
“Lbad luck»
The screenings had proved negative on the driver of the heavy goods vehicle who had been slightly injured. The analyzes had established that the young driver was driving “with a blood alcohol level of 2.15 per literand was “under the influence of narcotics“, had indicated the prosecution two months after the tragedy.
The lawyer for the family of one of the young men killed, Me Bénédicte Del Vecchio, reacted to AFP on Monday, denouncing a “incomprehensible decision for the family who is completely destroyed by the legal response“.
“During the hearing, we demonstrated, as an expert had also established, the recklessness of the driver who did not respect a very simple rule of the highway code, priority to the right. He certainly had all his driving license points but he may have forgotten to look, or had his head elsewhere and he cut the road“, continued Me Del Vecchio.
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The driver’s lawyer, Me Ludovic Tomasi, said to himself, “humanly relieved» for his client who was «particularly overwhelmed“. And “in legal terms“, the relaxation “corresponds to the objective reality of the file“, he told AFP. “My client, who has been in the business for 10 years and has not exceeded the speed limit by a single km/h in the hour preceding the impact, did not refuse priority. For that, it would be necessary to have time to see the other vehicle but this one arrived too quickly and it is not sure that its front lights were lit“, he detailed.
The prosecution had requested a dismissal at the end of the investigation, but the investigating judge had decided not to follow, ordering the dismissal of the driver for homicide and involuntary injuries. “We now hope that the General Prosecutor’s Office will appeal“, affirmed Me Del Vecchio, for whom this release “means that it is the fault of bad luck or even that of the young people“.
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