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ACCIDENT

Police offer new theory on cause of fatal pile-up

Police suspect that two stopped cars may have indirectly caused the massive pile-up that left one dead and dozens injured on an icy Swedish motorway last month.

Police offer new theory on cause of fatal pile-up

Both vehicles, which were stopped in the left northbound lane, disappeared from the scene before police arrived at the scene of the crash.

“They were what caused the first truck to put on the brakes and start skidding,” Arne Davidsson of the Skåne County police told the Sydsvenskan newspaper.

While the vehicles’ owners aren’t suspected of any crimes, they are being sought by police as part of the ongoing investigation into the cause of the January 15th crash on the Tranarpsbron bridge, which left the E4 motorway closed in both directions near Helsingborg.

RELATED PHOTO GALLERY: Pictures from the scene of the crash

In addition, eleven truck drivers involved in the crash are under criminal suspicion for reckless driving as their vehicles were going between 70 and 90 km/hr, a speed deemed much too fast considering the thick fog and icy road conditions.

“That the trucks were driving so fast when 30 would have been the right speed must be seen as reckless driving,” said Davidsson.

Police theorize that the truck that began skidding when braking for the two parked cars could have likely stopped safely had it been travelling at a reduced speed.

The driver of another car involved in the pile-up, considered the biggest traffic accident in Swedish history, is also suspected of reckless driving as a result of information gathered from witnesses, Sydsvenskan reports.

One truck driver is also suspected of involuntary manslaughter as it was his trailer that ended up killing another truck driver from Lithuania who had left his vehicle to warn other drivers of the accident.

Of the 74 vehicles involved in the crash, 40 were trucks and of the twelve truck drivers facing criminal suspicions, five are Swedish.

Police continue efforts to make contact with all the suspected drivers and expect to take the case to prosecutors in a few more weeks.

The Local/dl

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ACCIDENT

Cable car survivor must be returned to family in Italy, Israel court rules

An Israeli court ruled Monday that a boy whose parents died in an Italian cable car crash be returned to family in Italy, after his grandfather was accused of illegally bringing him to Israel.

Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021
Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The battle for custody of Eitan Biran, the sole survivor of the May accident that killed 14 people, has captured headlines since his maternal grandfather, Shmulik Peleg, brought him to Israel on a private jet last month.

The child lost his parents, younger brother and great-grandparents in the May 23 accident near the top of the Mottarone mountain in the northwestern Piedmont region, where the family was out on a Sunday excursion to the scenic spot served by the cable car.

The cable car’s pull cable snapped just before it reached destination. It then flew backwards, dislodging itself from a second, supporting cable, and crashed to the ground.

Investigations later revealed that emergency brakes that could have stopped the car on its supporting cable, avoiding the tragedy, had been deliberately deactivated to avoid delays following a technical malfunction.

Three individuals responsible for the cable car’s management were subsequently arrested.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14. MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP.

Peleg has insisted that he drove Eitan from Italy to Switzerland before jetting him back to Israel – instead of returning him paternal aunt Aya Biran, who lives in northern Italy – because Eitan’s late parents wanted him to be raised in the Jewish state.

But Peleg has become the subject kidnapping probe by Italian prosecutors and Israeli police questioned him over those allegations last month.

A statement Monday from the Tel Aviv court where Aya Biran had filed a complaint said judges “did not accept the grandfather’s claim that the aunt has no custody rights”.

It recognised an Italian judgement that established Biran as a legitimate guardian and said Peleg had “unlawfully” removed the boy from his aunt’s care.

The court “ordered the return of the minor to his usual place of residence in Italy”.

The court also found that “a connection” between the surviving members of the Italy- and Israel-based relatives was in Eitan’s “best interests”.

Peleg was also ordered to pay Biran’s legal fees, amounting to 70,000 shekels ($22,000).

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Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021.

Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The case has stirred emotions in Israel, and throngs of journalists had surrounded the Tel Aviv court for hearings last month, with some pro-Peleg protesters insisting it was wrong to send a Jewish child out of Israel.

Before judges ordered the sides to stop talking to the media, Peleg told Israel’s Channel 12 in September that his grandson was “in the place where he is supposed to be, in his home, in Israel.”

Eitan and his parents, Amit Biran and Tal Peleg, had been living in Italy, where Amit Biran was studying medicine, together with their other child, Tom.

Eitan suffered severe chest and abdominal injuries and spent a week in intensive care after the May accident that occurred when a cable snapped on the aerial tram bringing weekend visitors to the top of the Piedmont region’s Mottarone mountain.

The accident was one of Italy’s worst in over two decades.   

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