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Charges sought in hit-and-run road death

No fewer than 17 drivers drove their vehicles over a motorist who died after exiting his car following a night-time collision on the A13 highway, Saint Gallen cantonal police said on Thursday.

Published: 9 November 2012 10:38 CET
Charges sought in hit-and-run road death
Wheel cover from one of the implicated vehicles (Photo: St. Gallen cantonal police)

Justice authorities from the canton have launched an investigation into criminal homicide by negligence in the death of the 56-year-old man near St. Margrethen late last month.

The victim, a Serb living in Switzerland, got out of his car after it was struck by another vehicle at 5.30am on October 25, according to cantonal police information.

He was subsequently struck by another car whose driver stopped a few hundred metres along the road to inform police.

A further 16 vehicles ran over his body, including several vans and trucks, cantonal police said.

Police have tracked down the drivers of the first vehicles to drive over the man after appealing through the media for more information.

Among them was the driver of a van who lost a wheel cover near the scene of the tragedy.

The driver told investigators he thought he struck an animal or an object.

In addition to criminal negligence, the public prosecutor is also looking at violation of the  responsibilities in dealing with a motor vehicle accident. 

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NORWAY

Body found in Oslo flat nine years after death

A man lay dead in his flat for nine years before being discovered in December, police in Oslo have said.

Published: 9 April 2021 11:20 CEST
Body found in Oslo flat nine years after death
Photo by pichet wong from Pexels

The man, who was in his sixties, had been married more than once and also had children, national broadcaster NRK reports.

His name has been kept anonymous. According to neighbours he liked to keep to himself and when they didn’t see him, they thought he had moved or been taken to assisted living.

“Based on the details we have, it is obviously a person who has chosen to have little contact with others,” Grethe Lien Metild, chief of Oslo Police District, told NRK.

His body was discovered when a caretaker for the building he was living in requested police open the apartment so he could carry out his work.

“We have thought it about a lot, my colleagues and people who have worked with this for many years. This is a special case, and it makes us ask questions about how it could happen,” Metild said.

Police believe the man died in April 2011, based on a carton of milk and a letter that were found in his apartment. An autopsy has shown he died of natural causes.

READ ALSO: Immigrants in Norway more likely to be affected by loneliness

His pension was suspended in 2018 when the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV) could not get in touch with him, but his bills were still paid out of his bank account and suspended pension fund.

Arne Krokan, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said the man’s death would have unlikely gone unnoticed for so long if he had died 30 years ago.

“In a way, it is the price we have paid to get digital services,” he said to NRK.

Last year 27 people were found in Oslo, Asker or Bærum seven days or more after dying. The year before the number was 32 people. Of these, one was dead for almost seven months before being discovered.

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