Davide Rebellin's death on Wednesday in a hit and run has now led to the identification of a suspect, with new details about the case emerging this afternoon. Italian police officers working on the case have tracked down a truck driver in Germany who they believe was at the scene of the fatal crash in Italy in his truck and is now a suspect in the case.
The German man was previously accused of a hit and run in Italy in which people were injured. In a separate incident, he was also charged with drink driving. He pled guilty to the hit and run - in Foggia in southern Italy in 2001 - but because the time had expired for the justice system to finalise the case he was never punished. The drink driving case arose in 2014 in Chieti, central Italy, and Il Gazzettino has reported his licence was suspended for a time after that incident.
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Rebellin (51) had only just retired from professional racing but was killed off his bike in his native Italy on Wednesday. He was hit by a driver in a truck as her returned home from a training ride in Montebello Vicentino, northern Italy. He was on his gravel bike at the time, which was smashed in pieces on the road after the crash.
Italian media outlets had already reported the driver of a German-registered truck was being sought by investigators in Italy because it was seen turning into a restaurant car park at the scene of Rebellin's death at the time of the fatal hit and run.
And this afternoon news outlets in Italy have reported the German truck driver has been tracked down with the cooperation of law enforcement in Germany as well as Slovenia and Austria. It was unclear when, and where, he would be questioned by the Italian investigators. The driver has not been arrested because the inquiry into Rebellin's death is a "vehicular homicide" case, which is not a specific offence under German law.
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Some reports in Italy have suggested the driver of the truck that fatally hit Rebellin pulled into the restaurant car park after the collision and then remained in the parked vehicle for several minutes before driving off again, passing the crash scene. However, other reports say witnesses have told the police the driver who hit Rebellin stopped his truck when the crash happened. Those reports suggest the driver got out of the vehicle and checked the crash scene before drive off after seeing Rebellin dead on the road.
Footage from a CCTV camera in the restaurant car park was studied closely by the Italian police. While it apparently does not cover the exact spot where Rebellin was killed - on a roundabout close to the car park entrance - it filmed the trucks that entered the car park immediately after the crash.
Reports in Italy also stated a number of people who were in the area at the time stopped at the scene and took photographs Those images, and the CCTV footage, enabled the police to identify a number of trucks they were interested in and led to the German driver being tracked down.
He was said to be in Italy on Wednesday to make a delivery. He collected cargo from a depot in Verona and, after the crash, he made a delivery to Berlin before driving back to the town in northern Germany where the company he drives for is based.
Il Gazzettino has reported the driver used identity documents at the depot in Verona earlier on Wednesday. It added the documents he used when making his collection included a photograph of the driver which was cross-checked with the photographs taken by witnesses at the scene of the fatal crash.
