It almost sounds like a movie: In the middle of the night, a man wanted with an arrest warrant turns himself in to the police on the border with Italy. He is said to have steered a motorboat in a fatal accident on Lake Garda.
Brescia / Brenner – In the middle of the night, a car with the suspect passed the border between Austria and Italy. In South Tyrol, the 52-year-old from Germany wants to face the Italian authorities.
As a result of a fatal boat accident on Lake Garda, they searched for him with a European arrest warrant.
The Munich resident is accused of having rammed an Italian couple’s boat with a friend of the same age on the lake in northern Italy a little more than two weeks ago. The 37-year-old man from the area around Salò on the west bank and his 25-year-old companion lost their lives in the process.
The defender of the wanted man organized the night and fog action in the South Tyrolean village of Brenner according to his own statements. He agreed on the place and time with the investigating authorities in Brescia, said a spokesman for the law firm of the German Press Agency on Monday. The Carabinieri then took the suspect to Brescia in a civilian vehicle. There he is now in custody. According to the attorney’s office, the authorities must now decide how to proceed in the case. The public prosecutor in Brescia and the Carabinieri initially did not provide any information about the transfer when asked.
The accident on Lake Garda occurred in the night from Saturday (June 19) to Sunday. According to investigations, the German motorboat crashed into the Italian couple’s small boat. A local discovered the man dead in the boat that morning. Hours later, divers recovered the woman’s body from the depths of the lake. Forensic doctors later discover that she drowned.
The investigation quickly focused on the two Germans. The public prosecutor’s office has been investigating since the accident for failure to provide assistance and manslaughter. The men are said not to have stopped to help. They testified that they did not notice the impact that night.
Because there was no risk of fleeing and because they had families and jobs in Munich, they were able to return to the Bavarian capital a short time later, as it was called at the time. The decision caused criticism. Only one of the two had taken an alcohol test with a negative result. The other had refused because he was not obliged to do so, confirmed his lawyer.
A few days ago, the Italian judiciary issued the European arrest warrant. The public prosecutor’s office only applied for this against one of the two Munich residents because of the risk of flight and the risk of repeating the offense. According to media reports, he should have steered the motorboat during the impact. According to his lawyer, he wanted to cooperate with the authorities and not run away from the allegations. In addition, with his voluntary extradition he wanted to get rid of rumors about him in the press.
After the accident, a video from a surveillance camera surfaced in Italian media. It should be shown how the two Germans docked in the port during the night and one of them fell into the water. The defense said it was a slip-up because of an abrupt maneuver. Media suspected the man fell into the water because he was drunk.
The families of the victims had called for measures to be taken against Munich. The two dead have already been buried. “You have to understand what you did wrong,” demanded the daughter’s father in a television interview over the weekend. The lawyers welcomed the issuance of the arrest warrant and told the Ansa news agency that this was an “effective response” to the irresponsible behavior of the two Germans. dpa
