Footage of a reconstruction of a 2007 hit-and-run, in which a 17-year-old boy was killed after defendant Efi Herodotou allegedly ran a red light, corroborated the key eye-witness’ story, the Nicosia district court heard on Tuesday.
Herodotou, 30, who had been wanted by police since 2011 over the incident, and was apparently living in Greece with her parents since, had been acquitted in the first trial in 2009, but state prosecutors preparing for an appeal discovered that evidence submitted in her trial had been forged and tampered with, and at least one defence witness had perjured himself.
The reconstruction video was prepared by traffic police officer Evripides Andreou, who took the stand for the prosecution.
Andreou told the court that before staging the reconstruction he sought assurances the Limassol intersection where the accident took place had not been altered over the years by road works.
He added that he confirmed that both the intersection and the operation of the traffic lights controlling it have not changed since the day of the accident, with the exception that the green light lasts eight seconds longer.
The traffic police officer said that the reconstruction showed that the U-turn the scene’s sole eye-witness claims to have made in pursuit of Herodotou’s car, which she had earlier seen crashing into the victim’s moped after it ran a red light, was “easily achievable”.
The conclusion drawn, he added, is that the witness could see the defendant’s direction “without losing sight of her, as the road is straight with ample visibility”.
“Hence, the witness followed the defendant to the point where she reached a dead-end,” Andreou said.
On-site inspections and photographs depicting the damage to the two vehicles suggested that their directions prior to the crash were as described by the witness.
Cross-examined by Herodotou’s lawyer Chris Triantafyllides, Andreou conceded that he “wasn’t there” at the time of the crash, and could thus not say definitively whether the traffic lights had been working properly.
Andreou conceded that, from her spot opposite Herodotou’s car, the eye-witness could only see the traffic lights facing her, and not the lights Herodotou could see.
“Therefore, [the eye-witness] could not say that Efi Herodotou crossed the intersection when the light was red, orange, or green,” Triantafyllides said.
He also agreed that the eye-witness had a clear view of the victim’s moped before it entered the intersection, which Herodotou did not have due to view-obstructing buildings.
The case continues on March 30.
