Story By: Koen Berghuis, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: CEN
A killer dentist who mowed down this pretty 19-year-old on a pedestrian crossing has been spared jail despite a string of previous road offences and driving without a licence at the time.
Elida Osmani, 19, died when she was hit over by a silver Volvo estate on a pedestrian crossing in November 2017 in Lenzburg, a town in the Swiss canton of Aargau.
The teenager was seriously injured in the incident and died from a traumatic head injury shortly after being taken to hospital.
Pictures Credit: CEN
However, the driver, an 82-year-old dentist whose name was not shared due to privacy reasons, has escaped a jail sentence.
The Lenzburg district court found the OAP guilty of involuntary manslaughter, but only handed him a 10,000- CHF (7,780-GBP) fine and an additional 60,000-CHF (46,680-GBP) suspended fine, which will be fully acquitted if the dentist behaves well during his probation.
The OAP has a criminal record as he has previously been convicted of multiple traffic offences.
According to local media, he did not have a valid driving licence at the time of the accident as it had been suspended months earlier for previous traffic offences.
He registered 0.02 grams of alcohol for every 100 millilitres of blood, under the legal limit in Switzerland and prosecutors claim he was driving too fast when he hit Elida, whose relatives were shocked by the sentence.
Their lawyer Eric Stern said: “This punishment is in no way in proportion to what happened.”
Prosecutors argued in court that the OAP dentist should be locked up for 15 months for the offence which can be punished in Switzerland with a maximum of three years in prison or a fine.
Prosecutors spoke of a “blind flight” and recklessness in the dentist’s actions, which according to Stern also indicated intent.
The OAP dentist gave a statement after the accident, saying that “it was dark and raining”, and claiming he “did not see the woman, I only slowed down when I crashed”.
The court sided with the OAP dentist’s statement according to Stern, who said that serious errors were made in the investigation of the crash.
He said: “Only four people were questioned as so-called informants by the police. No witness interviews were carried out.”
