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Paris tourist bus driver charged over road rage murder
PARIS, May 31, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A driver of a double-decker Paris tourist
bus has been charged with murder and placed under arrest over a road fight in
the French capital that left a car driver dead, prosecutors said.
The man, 46, has been charged with voluntary homicide and put into
provisional detention, a source in the prosecutors’ office said, asking not
to be identified by name.
The incident took place late Wednesday on the Quai Voltaire, a road
embankment on the opposite side of the River Seine from the Louvre museum.
A verbal clash between the driver of the hop-on-hop-off City Sightseeing
Paris bus, which offers tours round the capital, and the car driver
degenerated into a physical fight.
Initial investigations found that the double-decker bus hit the car and in
anger the car driver, 55, got out of his vehicle.
The tone rapidly escalated and the two came to blows.
Subsequently, “the bus started up and crushed the car driver against
another bus,” a source close to the investigation said.
The victim died at the scene. Passengers on the bus were offered
psychological help.
While being charged does not automatically trigger a trial under French
law, it does mean prosecutors believe there is strong or corroborated
evidence of wrongdoing.
The office of Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said Thursday that City Sightseeing
Paris had no authorisation to operate in the capital.
An official at the city hall told AFP four companies were offering similar
services, but only two have a licence to operate.
But the mayor’s office wants to shake up the sector to have only electric
buses on the routes, which would require all operators to reapply for
licences.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1537 hrs