At the outcome of the preliminary hearing held on Thursday 6 June, in the Court of Siena, he agreed to a sentence of three years and six months in prison for vehicular homicide aggravated by the fact of having caused the death and injury of several people, a sentence to be served under house arrest, Ahmed Ezzedini, 44 years old, of Tunisian origins but resident in Caltagirone, in the Catania area, the truck driver accused and now also convicted for having caused – due to distraction, excessive speed and probably also tiredness, due to failure to respect the prescribed driving and rest – the terrible collision that occurred on 17 June 2022 along the A1 motorway, at km 414, between Fabro and Chiusi and cost the lives of the innocent Serena Ursillo and her friend Enrica Macci, in addition to serious injuries of three other people. The accused, who was able to benefit from the sentence discounts provided by the alternative procedure chosen, was also given the additional sanction of revocation of his driving licence.
The accused, driving an Iveco General Trailer articulated lorry, as the investigating magistrate wrote in his request for indictment formulated at the end of the preliminary investigations, “he became belatedly aware of the blocked traffic“, due to the dismantling of a construction site, “and, despite the sudden braking implemented at the last moment, he was going to overwhelm all the vehicles in front of him in the lane”. The heavy vehicle first hit a Volkswagen T-Roc “which, as a result of the impact, was pushed towards the overtaking lane and, after overturning, collided with two other stationary vehicles”, a Kia Niro and an Opel Karl: the occupants of the three cars were all miraculously saved, but the driver and the passenger of the T-Roc suffered serious multiple traumas and several fractures with a prognosis of more than forty days. Unfortunately, after this first impact, the articulated lorry “he continued his forward motion, hitting other vehicles in front of him in the lane” continues Dr. Ludovici in her act, i.e. the Fiat Panda driven by Enrica Macci and in which Serena Ursillo and a Fiat Punto were transported: the two friends were going to Chianciano to follow a qualification course for volleyball coaches. They would never have gotten there.
The prosecutor, specifically, accused the truck driver of “general negligence and violation of various rules on road traffic regulation”: “exceeding the maximum speed limit, since it was traveling along a stretch of motorway at a speed of 84 km/h, already having made the relevant tolerance of 6 km/h in favor of the driver, thus exceeding the maximum limit allowed on the motorway, for this category of vehicle , is set at 80 km/h”, “loss of control of the vehicle as he was unable to maintain control so much so that, in the presence of a slowdown in traffic and subsequent blockage, regularly reported by the relevant variable message panels and by the traffic service of the motorway company, he was unable to avoid violently collide with other vehicles that regularly preceded him on the same lane in line with the flow of traffic existing there”. Not only that, from the investigations and analysis of the tachograph of the heavy vehicle it also emerged, at the expense of the haulier, “exceeding the daily driving period, since he did not observe that prescribed by the EC regulation, exceeding the maximum permitted limit by 32 minutes” and “failure to comply with the daily rest period” defined by the same community regulation.
We then arrived at the preliminary hearing in which Ezzedini, through his defender, faced with his overwhelming responsibilities, requested and obtained a plea deal. Serena Ursillo’s family members have already been fully compensated by the truck’s insurance company, but they also expected a response from criminal justice, despite knowing that no punishment would ever be commensurate with the unbridgeable loss they suffered: a response that arrived, with a sentence of a non-negligible amount considering the “practice” for the crime of road homicide, where the defendants generally get away with very “soft” sentences and conditional suspension.
