Rome, Dec 15, (dpa/GNA) – A court in the northern Italian city of Pavia, has reached an agreement with the accused grandfather and another man, in the kidnapping case of the Israeli boy Eitan, the sole survivor of a cable-car accident that claimed the lives of his immediate family.
The judge on Thursday accepted the negotiated sentence of one year and eight months suspended for Eitan’s grandfather, and one year and six months suspended for his alleged accomplice, the ANSA news agency reported.
It was the right solution for the child, the grandfather’s lawyers explained afterwards. The other side, led by Eitan’s aunt, took a similar view but said it was “dismayed” because the sentence had been relatively light.
The case before the court concerned Eitan’s abduction on September 11, 2021, when his grandfather took him to Israel via Switzerland, where a few months later a court of last instance ruled that the then 6-year-old had to return to Italy.
The background was a dispute over custody of the boy, because Eitan was the only survivor of the fatal cable-car crash on Monte Mottarone, west of Lake Maggiore, on May 23, 2021. His brother, parents and great-grandparents and nine other people died there. Eitan was then taken into the care of his aunt, who lives in northern Italy.
The cause of the gondola crash is still being investigated by the competent court in Verbania on Lake Maggiore. The cabin of the cable car from Stresa to Monte Mottarone plunged into the depths because the cable broke shortly before the top station.
In fact emergency brakes, which should have been applied to the carrying cable at that moment, would have prevented the accident.
However, they were blocked with forks without permission because they had previously caused malfunctions during operation. The gondola then hurtled downhill, crashed and broke up on a wooded slope.
In mid-September, a long-awaited expert report concluded that parts of the broken cable had corroded and that inspections had made it possible to detect this weathering.
On Thursday, an expert witness for the defence stated that the damage should have been visible at least a year earlier, several media reported. Several railway employees and companies have to answer for their actions in court.
GNA