The defense of the family of the teenager who died in the Copsa bus 540 accident in Maldonado will insist on carry out your own expertise to the damaged car after the forensic expertise ordered by the Prosecutor’s Office indicated that the vehicle had no faults and that the incident was due to human error, confirmed to The Observer lawyer Raphael Silva.
Silva, who also defends other passengers who were injured on that trip, wants to question those responsible for the Copsa workshop after having the results of his own investigation. “I have to do this with the head of a prosecutor, with the answers in hand,” he said.
Since before knowing the result of the expertise of the Scientific police which determined that the accident was due to human erroras confirmed The Observerthe lawyer for the family of the deceased teenager I wanted to carry out an expertise other than the one requested by Prosecutor. Silva awaits the approval of the Prosecutor’s Office, but if there is no response in this regard, the defense will take it as a “fictitious refusal” and will appeal to the judiciary.
The result of the expertise released this Monday by The Observer neither did he “satisfy” the defensesaid the lawyer.
According to Silva, the research by Científica “it does not give errors or failures of any kind” by the bus, something “diametrically opposed to what was sustained by different passengers on this and previous trips” that the defense presented as testimony.
To this is added the audio of the driver who became public, in which he denounces the malfunction of the vehicle: “Here I go on Wave 540, everyone complains, you don’t know what this is. It jiggles everywhere. I don’t know whether to take it to 80, whether to take it to 100, take it to 95. I don’t know!” .
In any case, Silva affirmed that the report of the Road Accident Office about the accident “okay, within parameters.” This report reaffirms that the “cause was a human error, due to speeding”, assured the lawyer. This report, he added, it is based on the “tachograph disk”, which records the speed of vehicles.
The statement of the Copsa driver
According to Silva, the driver himself admitted in an interrogation that he was going to “a speed above that enabled in the area for the time, moment and circumstance”.
However, sources close to the driver told The Observer than the driver did not acknowledge these facts and what Accidentology He gave a “range” of speed in which the car was driven different from the one indicated by the person in charge of the vehicle.
Silva, who accessed the driver’s statement through the case file, regretted that you have not been invited to participate in the interrogationand stated that you “need to ask questions”so you want to question him on your own.
In his statement, the driver assured the Prosecutor’s Office that He reported the malfunction of the car to a superior. For this reason, the lawyer for the victims also You want to summon this official to verify this complaint.
Despite the fact that in principle the general manager of Copsa, Xavier Cardosoindicated that the bus was in good condition and authorized to drive, something that he maintains and that ratified by the Ministry of Transportfrom the Copsa workers union They claimed that the car 540 It had already been denounced by company officials.
The driver also reaffirmed that did not use the cell phone while traveling on the busSilva explained. However, to verify this fact It still remains to know the result of the expertise on the cell phonewhich can verify from the activity of the device whether or not the driver used it at the time the accident occurred.
Copsa passenger injuries
The defense attorney announced that prosecutor Pereira began quoting for this week some of the 32 passengers to perform the “injury check”in order to determine what was the total impact of the accident.
The lesions are divided between “mild”, “serious” and “very serious”and are qualified by a forensic doctor who analyzes those involved.
To report injuries included in the first two classifications victims must submit a “parte request” to the authorities. If a coroner determines that a person was seriously injured Prosecutor’s Office can act ex officio.
