ROBERTO VERNARELLI, father of 33-year-old Friedrich Vernarelli, the man accused of the manslaughter of Irish women Elizabeth Gubbins and Mary Collins in a hit-and-run incident in Rome on St Patrick’s night, 2008, was the key witness when his son’s trial resumed in Rome yesterday.
Although there had been speculation that yesterday’s hearing might see the conclusion of this trial, Judge Anna Maria Pazienza adjourned the case until next month in response to calls from defence lawyers who claimed that they need more time to track down two key Hungarian witnesses.
Repeating a line of defence that the Vernarelli family has espoused since the trial began almost exactly one year ago, Mr Vernarelli once again suggested that his son had not been driving the car which killed the two Irish women.
Rather, he called on police to question two Hungarians, Andras Kazma and Zolt Balogh, one of whom he claims was driving the car at the time of the collision.
When traffic police woke him up early on the morning of March 18th, 2008, Mr Vernarelli, himself a retired traffic policeman with more 30 years’ experience, said that initially he believed them when they told him that his son had killed two people, driving along Rome’s Lungotevere road at 150km/h in a “drunk and drugged” state.
He said that he became furious with his son and shook him hard, shouting at him: “What have you done?” Friedrich, however, could only reply: “I don’t remember”.
It was only later when he examined the police report that Roberto Vernarelli began to have doubts about the manner in which the crash investigation had been handled.
For a start, he said, no evidence was taken from three American tourists who along with another US tourist, Manuel Ruiz, had witnessed the crash.
Furthermore, police had paid no attention to what happened when Manuel Ruiz was later taken to Rome’s Santo Spirito hospital to make a formal identification of Friedrich Vernarelli, who had in the meantime been arrested by police after crashing into cars and a sign post farther up the Tiber river side.
Mr Ruiz, he said, had told police (and later repeated in court) that the man pointed out to him, namely Friedrich Vernarelli, was not the man who had been standing beside the killer vehicle on the Lungotevere seconds after the incident.
Earlier, the court had also heard the evidence of psychologist Paola Papolla, who, at the request of the Vernarelli family, examined Friedrich Vernarelli on March 19th, two days after the incident.
Ms Papolla said that Mr Vernarelli was in a very depressed and anxious state, that he told her he could not remember anything but that he had been told he had killed two people. He told the psychologist that his life “had no more sense”.
Asked why Friedrich Vernarelli could remember nothing about the accident, Ms Papolla said that it was not unusual for someone with a high level of alcohol content in their blood, as Vernarelli had, to suffer from a “blackout”.
At the end of yesterday’s hearing, defence lawyers for Mr Vernarelli called on Judge Pazienza to issue an international Rogatory Letter, which would de facto enable the court to take a deposition, probably in Hungary, from the two Hungarians, Mr Kazma and Mr Balogh.
The judge declined to issue an immediate ruling on the request, but will communicate her decision when the case resumes on October 16th.