2023-06-17 13:28:54
A German truck driver suspected of hitting and causing the death of former Italian cycling champion Davide Rebellin has been arrested in Germany, the Italian prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.
The man, an employee of a company in Recke, near Münster, had struck Davide Rebellin on November 30, 2022 in the town of Montebello Vicentino, in Veneto (northeast). The heavyweight had not stopped. Davide Rebellin, 51, Olympic vice-champion in road cycling in Beijing in 2008, died instantly.
The driver was arrested on Thursday and placed in pre-trial detention in Münster pending the decision of the German courts on his surrender to the Italian authorities. He is being prosecuted for manslaughter and failure to assist a person in danger, the prosecution said in a statement.
He had cleaned his truck with detergent
“Rebellin’s death is attributable exclusively to a combination of shortcomings on the part of the [suspect] in the conduct of his heavy weight in the moments preceding the impact, ”wrote the magistrate in charge of the preliminary investigation in his conclusions.
Investigators identified the driver thanks to surveillance cameras installed near the scene of the accident. Investigations have established that the alleged contact points of the bicycle and the victim on the truck were cleaned with a “concentrated detergent”.
Winner of classics seven times in his career, including a resounding hat-trick in the Ardennes in 2004, Davide Rebellin was one of the best specialists in one-day races of his generation. Testing positive for EPO several months after the Beijing Olympics in 2008, sentenced to two years of suspension and effectively losing his Olympic silver medal, he nevertheless remained on the professional circuit and continued to run major races in the middle 2010s, at the age of 45.
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