process start
Three friends killed – 22-year-old in the dock
A 22-year-old is accused of illegal motor vehicle racing in the Berlin district court. Photo: Annette Riedl/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
His excessive speed cost the lives of three young men: The driver and sole survivor of the car accident now has to answer in court and begins the process with words of remorse.
He is said to have raced through a 30 zone at up to 150 kilometers per hour: a good year after a horror accident in Berlin with three deaths, a 22-year-old is standing before the capital’s district court.
He was the only one who survived the jaunt with three friends. “I wish I had died and not her,” the accused said. At that time he always drove a little faster than actually allowed. That was normal. In the late evening of February 2, 2021, however, he must have “somehow lost control of the car”.
Ten co-plaintiffs
The charges are for illegal motor vehicle racing resulting in death and endangering road traffic. There are ten joint plaintiffs, parents and siblings of the three fatally injured men, in the process. Nine survivors appeared in person. With tears they heard the accusation.
The 450 hp car with the four men between the ages of 19 and 21 crashed into a tree at high speed. “The force of the impact was so great that the crown of the tree broke off and fell onto the road,” the indictment says. The car had been torn apart. There had been further collisions with a tree, a switch box and a construction container. The tail section caught fire. “A flaming inferno,” described a witness.
The public prosecutor assumes that the 22-year-old did not let any concerns about his behavior arise, either out of indifference or put them aside “behind his selfish motivation to call up the entire engine power and thus achieve the highest possible speed”.
The accused quickly and quietly read out what he had written down about the allegations. He got the high-powered car as a birthday present from a neighbor shortly before the fatal drive. He and the passengers wanted to meet up with boys in the Neukölln district. Shortly before the accident, he classified himself on the left. “When I drove a little further, I don’t know what happened.” He doesn’t understand it – “suddenly I was sitting in the wreck”.
Too fast pace
An expert is said to have calculated that the minimum speed when it hit the first tree was 130 kilometers per hour. The accused described that at the point – a 30 km/h distance at the time – after overtaking he “definitely drove faster, certainly 80 or even 100, but I didn’t step through”. At the time, it was “a normal trip for him, like the one we used to do all the time”. He was a “crass car lover”. That has changed. “I would like to say that I will never drive a car again in my life.”
Illegal car races repeatedly lead to serious accidents in Berlin and elsewhere. Since October 2017, participation in such races can be punished with up to two years in prison. The new Paragraph 315d also provides for up to ten years in prison if the death of another person is caused by a “banned motor vehicle race”. The trial against the 22-year-old continues on March 2nd.