The trial of three American teenagers accused of dropping rocks onto speeding cars from a highway bridge in Germany began Friday with the high school students facing charges of murder and attempted murder.
Two German drivers were killed when the rocks dropped by the teenagers, now between the ages of 15 and 18, smashed the windshields of their cars. Another five people were injured, one of them critically.
The youths, sons of American soldiers at the US military base here, admitted dropping the rocks, some of which weighed several kilograms (pounds), from a pedestrian bridge over the highway between Heidelberg and Frankfurt in February.
The prosecutor in the case has called for a murder conviction because the boys continued to hurl rocks from the bridge after the first driver, a 41-year-old mother of two young children, was killed.
Shortly afterwards, a 20-year-old student died when a stone weighing more than eight kilograms (nearly 18 pounds) crashed through the windshield of her car. Her grandmother, also in the car at the time, was critically injured but survived.
The trial is taking place in juvenile court. The boys could face 10-year sentences in a German detention center if convicted.
US Defense Secretary William Cohen said at the time that he had been "shocked and saddened" by the incident and pledged American officials' help in the investigation.
The four youths had been arrested on tip-offs from local people after police offered a reward of 10,000 marks (about 5,000 euros/dollars) for information leading to the culprits -- DARMSTADT (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
