Passenger of killer taxi driver Pleshyvtsev says he wanted to show off his "skilled driving," – National Police (updated)
Mercedes driver Pleshyvtsev, who hit people in an underpass in Kyiv, was working as a taxi driver and carrying out an order at the time of the car crash.
RBC-Ukraine was told this by the National Police, Censor.NET reports.
New details
According to the police, the passenger who was in the car at the time of the crash said the driver simply wanted to show off his skilled driving to her, which caused the accident.
The woman is now in hospital with injuries.
Earlier, the lawyer said that killer Pleshyvtsev does not remember the circumstances of the fatal crash. He was working as a taxi driver and was carrying a passenger.
Updated information
The Kyiv City Prosecutor’s Office told Ukrainska Pravda that the passenger is one of the three people injured in the crash. She sustained fractures, is in hospital and is communicating with investigators. The woman ordered the taxi through an app. The Prosecutor’s Office did not name the company, but Pleshivtsev himself said in court that he had been working as a taxi driver in cooperation with Bolt.
The woman told law enforcement officers that the driver was friendly but began to speed up and change lanes repeatedly. She became frightened and reprimanded him. The driver ignored her remarks and continued to accelerate, after which the woman asked him to stop the car. He ignored that request. Some time later, the car crashed into the pedestrian underpass.
During the court hearing on choosing a pre-trial restriction for the driver, his lawyer claimed that the fatal crash had occurred because something "similar to the car becoming uncontrollable" had allegedly happened. However, the Prosecutor’s Office says such assumptions by the defense are refuted by the passenger’s testimony.
Background
- As a reminder, on 5 June in Kyiv, the driver of a Mercedes car drove at high speed into a pedestrian zone near Karavaievi Dachi in the Solomianskyi district. There were killed and injured people.
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The court remanded killer driver Pleshyvtsev in custody after he drove into an underpass in Kyiv and killed four people.
