Eight face trial over Mottarone cable-car disaster

(ANSA) - ROME, MAY 19 - Verbania prosecutors said Friday that they have notified eight people that they have concluded their probe into the 2021 Stresa-Mottarone cable-car disaster in Piedmont in which 14 people died, a move that usually becomes before indictment requests are filed.
    The suspects include Luigi Nerini, the head of the company that managed the service, Technical Director Enrico Perocchio, and Service Manager Gabriele Tadini.
    The investigation is focused, among other things, on the decision to deactivate the cable-car's emergency-braking system to stop it from kicking in and halting the service following a series of technical problems.
    The emergency braking system should have prevented the disaster after one of the cables snapped.
    The prosecutors said monthly checks on the cables were not done and the 68% of them were damaged.
    The two companies involving in running and maintaining the service also face trial.
    The only survivor of the disaster was Eitan Biran, an Israeli child lost his parents, two-year-old brother and two great grandparents in the disaster.
    The boy has been at the centre of a bitter legal battle between the paternal and maternal sides of his family.
    His maternal grandfather, Shmuel Peleg, was last year given a suspended sentence of one year, eight months for having taken the child to Israel in September 2021 when he was six years old.
    Eitan came back to Italy in December 2021 after Israeli courts ordered his return, saying he should remain with his paternal aunt, Aya Biran Nirko after the Italian authorities gave her custody. (ANSA).