A United States aircraftswoman who
knocked over and killed a 15-year-old boy in northern Italy at
the weekend must be tried in Italy and not the US, the boy's
mother said Tuesday.
The 20-year-old USAF solider was based at the Aviano air force
base near Pordenone.
The US usually tries its own citizens back in the States even if
they have committed crimes abroad.
A case in point was the Cermis cable car disaster near Aviano in
1998 in which the US pilots who flew too low and cut a cable
plunging 20 people to their deaths were acquitted of
manslaughter in the US straining relations with Italy.
"That woman must be tried in Italy and serve her full term,"
said Barbara Scandella, mother of Giovanni Zanier, the victim of
the incident near Pordenone early on Sunday morning.
The aircraftswoman, 20-year-old Julia Bravo, was found to have a
blood alcohol level four times the legal limit in Italy.
She faces a hearing to uphold her arrest warrant later Tuesday.
The woman, who was driving back from a night out, reportedly
lost control of her car after a roundabout and hit Giovanni
Zanier on a cycle path at around two thirty in the morning.
Zanier's mother had told him to walk back from the bar he had
attended with two friends even though his home was several
kilometres away.
The two friends were unhurt in the crash.
Bravo has been arrested and placed under house arrest, charged
with vehicular homicide.
The local council at Porcia recently ordered street lights in
the spot to be turned off at two a.m., but police said the
accident would probably not have been averted even with the
lights on.
An eye witness who came out of the same disco as Bravo
reportedly told police Tuesday that "that woman was completely
drunk when she took the wheel. She couldn't even turn the
ignition on"," reported the Gazzettino newspaper.
Bravo drove off in a direction that was diametrically opposite
the Aviano base, the witness said.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
