Santiago Rodriguez Jimenez, the driver of the bus that ran off the road in Freginals in Spain on 20 March 2016, causing the death of 13 Erasmus students, seven of whom were Italian, has died.
The families of the victims communicate it in a note through their lawyer.
The man was killed by a heart attack.
Rodriguez was the only defendant for that massacre and his death effectively closes the criminal trial.
"Seven years later in the same period of the year in which our girls passed away, the news of the death of Santiago Rodriguez Jimenez, the driver, reached us. He died of a heart attack. Thus ends our judicial history. No verdict will be issued because criminal liability is personal".
The parents of the victims write it in a letter entrusted to the lawyer Maria Cleme Bartesaghi.
Last autumn, the driver had reached a sort of plea agreement, according to Spanish law, namely a sentence reduction for the admission of responsibility, but the decision had not yet been put on paper by the judge.
Among the girls who died in the accident was also the Genoese Francesca Bonello, who was studying medicine at the time.
"In the'
autumn of 2022 - the letter continues - we had all taken a painful and difficult decision together, agreeing to a plea bargain with the issuing of a sentence of conviction of the driver;
who, in exchange for a reduced sentence, would finally admit his responsibility". start.
We have lost faith in a country - conclude the relatives of the seven girls - where the exercise of justice depends on the capacity and number of courtrooms or on the union claims, however legitimate, of a secretary.
A state in which the compensation of victims of road accidents is worth less than that of other accidents, in order not to weigh on the insurance companies.
So,
better to get out of it as soon as possible, not to suffer anymore.
Not even that was possible.
All we have left is the news that the driver would have negotiated a bargain: it is our only non-sentence". (ANSA).
