BOLZANO. It will not be just a battle between experts to decide the future of Stefan Lechner, the young motorist who was driving, drunk, a powerful Audi TT that on the night of January 5 last year sowed death in Lutago by falling on a group of boys Germans about to return to their hotel after an evening spent dancing in a local club, the “Exenkessel” in Cadipietra.
As you will recall, the victims were seven with another 8 seriously injured, one of which was in almost irreversible conditions of total disability. The insurance company “Assimoco spa” has made 10 million euros available for civil compensation but the parties have not yet reached an agreement on how to divide the sum and so the criminal proceedings could be slowed down since the defendant aims to obtain at least the mitigation of the damage compensated. Currently, the € 10 million has only been made available. The phase of acquiring the individual amounts (as lawyers call it) is still under discussion precisely because there is no agreement.
The impression is that despite the enormous tragedy of the circumstance there is some economic claim a little over the top because the Germanic lawyers involved up to now have claimed amounts above the compensation tables usually adopted by the Italian courts when in reality in Germany. they would be considerably less. Obviously, the 10 million euros made available by “Assimoco spa” is the only amount that can be put on the plate as compensation. There is no other money. Meanwhile, tomorrow a new hearing of the probative incident is scheduled (in front of judge Emilio Schönsberg) arranged to reach – through an expert opinion – a detailed reconstruction of the tragedy.
The defense with the lawyer Alberto Valenti also intends to do battle on an alleged guilt of the victims following the confusion that would have characterized the walking path (flock type) of the members of the group on the state road after getting off the bus with which they had reached the hotel area. That Lechner was drunk is not in dispute. At the time of the investment he was in fact driving with an alcohol level four times the permitted limit and the speed of the car (between 80 and 110 kilometers per hour) was well above the limit of 50 kilometers per hour existing at the point of ‘impact.
The defense, however, believes that the party could not have been practically in the middle of the roadway and that Lechner would have been dazzled by the headlights of the bus. Meanwhile, the accused, despite being formally free, continues to live in the Abbey of Novacella where he carries out jobs with a salary of about one thousand euros per month which he partly donates to associations to combat alcoholism.