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Italian investigators assess the damage to the boat (archive)
Photo: Gabriele Strada / dpa
In the trial of the fatal motorboat accident on Lake Garda, one of the two German defendants spoke out again.
'I didn't notice the accident as such.
I'm incredibly sorry," said the 52-year-old on Friday in the Brescia court.
The entrepreneur is accused of speeding across Lake Garda with a friend in a Riva motorboat on the night of June 19 and running over a small wooden boat.
Inside were Greta Nedrotti, 25, and her boyfriend Umberto Garzarella, 37. Both were killed.
The defendant, who, according to the investigation, steered the boat, and a friend drove on and later stated that they did not notice the accident.
In the current hearing, the Munich man was questioned for three hours. "I heard a noise out of the blue, a short but very audible noise, and at the same time felt a vibration in my feet," he said.
"That brief impact was so weak that I couldn't in my life assume that we had hit something big like a boat."
He and his passenger could not have seen an obstacle in the dark.
So they assumed they had hit a floating piece of wood.
Water got into the boat, so he said they wanted to reach their destination port on the west bank as quickly as possible.
The two accused have to answer, among other things, for negligent homicide and failure to provide assistance.
jpz/dpa
