Rebel accident: German truck driver suspected

DAccording to the Italian police, professional cyclist Davide Rebellin was run over and killed by a German truck driver. This was the result of the evaluation of surveillance videos at the crime scene, witness interviews and further investigations, as the Vicenza public prosecutor announced on Friday. Accordingly, the 62-year-old man, who works for a forwarding company from North Rhine-Westphalia, was also found through cooperation with the German police.

Charges were brought against the driver of the articulated lorry, who according to prosecutors had left the scene of the accident after the collision and returned to Germany. In his homeland, however, he could not be arrested because the Italian criminal offense of so-called killing in traffic (“omicidio stradale”) does not exist in the same way in the Federal Republic, the media reported. In addition, the authorities are also investigating a hit-and-run after a road traffic fatality.

The 51-year-old rebel, who used to drive for the German elite racing team Gerolsteiner and ended his long professional career just a few weeks ago, was hit by the trailer truck at a roundabout on Wednesday morning. He died at the scene of the accident in the municipality of Montebello Vicentino.

The public prosecutor’s office has now published further details: As eyewitnesses reported, the German got out after the accident and approached the rebel lying on the street. But then he immediately got back into the driver’s cab of the semitrailer and drove away. He was photographed by passers-by – the Carabinieri were able to use these pictures to locate the man.

It was also announced that the German long-distance driver had been convicted of hit and run in 2001 by a court in Foggia, southern Italy. In addition, in 2014 in Chieti in the central Italian region of Abruzzo, the police confiscated his driver’s license for drunk driving.