A 25-year-old Syrian man accused of crashing a minibus carrying smuggled migrants in Germany in October 2023 largely acknowledged some of the charges during his first day of trial on Tuesday.
Seven people were killed in the crash, including a six-year-old child.
The driver’s lawyer told a court in Bavaria on Tuesday that the man never intended to hurt anyone, let alone cause deaths.
He is said to have been driving the van, carrying 22 migrants from Turkey and Syria, from Austria to southern Germany when it crashed and overturned after speeding away from a civilian patrol that signaled him to stop.
The 25-year-old man is accused of seven murders and 15 attempted murders, in addition to smuggling foreigners and other crimes.
Prosecutor Marks Andrä described a breakneck chase in court and tried to portray the driver as deliberately reckless.
The indictment also relates to three other trips in which the 25-year-old allegedly took a total of 46 people to Bavaria under conditions that prosecutors said were life-threatening to them.
The three alleged scout drivers are separately charged with smuggling people into the country with fatal consequences.
Their trials are set to begin later this month.
