A high-speed getaway from police ended in the death of “an innocent”, say reports, after an alleged drug trafficker entered the main Lisbon CRIL highway “on the wrong side of the road” and crashed head-on into a Mercedes.
The 60-year-old Mercedes driver was declared ‘dead at the scene’, while the Spanish driver is now in hospital, described as in a “very serious condition”.
The accident happened early Tuesday afternoon.
According to tabloid Correio da Manhã it followed police intervention in an alleged transaction of hashish near the campsite at parkland area of Monsanto.
The Spanish driver of a Seat Leon – “identified as Juan Feria” – must have realised police were moving about to in as he reportedly “set off at high speed, entering the CRIL on the wrong side of the road, in the direction Lisbon-Algés.
“800 metres further on, he hit the Mercedes head-on”.
Says CM, a bale of hashish was later discovered in Feria’s car, as was another bale in the car of the Portuguese man with whom he had been allegedly about to do business with near the campsite.
Meantime, the dead Mercedes driver has yet to be identified. CM suggests he was a resident of nearby Cascais.
The “brutal accident” also saw a young Ford Fiesta driver collide with the back of the Mercedes and receive hospital treatment for light injuries, said the paper – stressing that the carnage could not have been described as having followed a police pursuit as the police did not in fact follow the Spanish registered car onto the CRIL – due to “lack of conditions of safety”.
Instead, other patrols were put on the alert to cover the highway exits, only to hear shortly afterwards that there was no need.
Both lanes of the CRIL were shut as a result of the incident “for some hours”, adds CM.
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
