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Following hard
on the heels of the highly publicised crash in the spring
that saw a Swedish businessman crash a Ferrari Enzo in
Malibu, California, and wind up serving a jail sentence, and
a second smash in August in the US state of Utah, another
Enzo has been crashed in dramatic circumstances; this time
an example belonging to a Russian Member of the Duma. This
report, by Nikolai Sergeev is courtesy of today's edition of
Kommersant.
Suleiman Kerimov, the Russian businessman listed by
Forbes as the 72nd richest
person in the world, was seriously injured on
Saturday in an automobile accident in Nice, France.
He lost control of his Ferrari Enzo, which
struck a tree at an enormous speed and burst into flames, as
he was travelling from the local airport toward the city
center. Kerimov was taken by helicopter to the regional burn
center at Hopital de la Conception in Marseille. He is now
on artificial respiration.
The accident occurred at about 3:30 p.m. on a stretch of the
Promenade des Anglais where the speed limit is 50 km/h. Kerimov himself was behind the wheel and moving
significantly faster then the speed limit when the black
Ferrari unexpectedly crossed the sidewalk and struck a tree.
Kerimov and his passenger were pulled from the burning car
by passersby, who also tried to extinguish the flames using
clothing and rugs. It took fire brigades from the Nice
airport to dowse the flames, however. The accident caused a
two-hour traffic jam on the busy highway.
Police and an emergency helicopter appeared on the scene
within moments. The helicopter took the seriously injured
Kerimov to the burn centre in Marseille. The female
passenger in the car, who was less seriously inured, was
taken to Saint Roch Hospital in Nice. A spokesman at the
Russian consulate in Marseille, which also serves the
Riviera, told Kommersant that they were maintaining
“control” over the situation and that official information
would be available on Monday.
A spokesman for the Nice police commissariat, Kommersant
was told that the judicial police investigate road transport
incidents. He refused to comment on the speed at which the
Ferrari was travelling or to give the name of Kerimov's
passenger. At the Maritime Alps Department police
prefecture, they acknowledged that Kerimov may have been the
victim of his own driving carelessness.
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The accident occurred at about 3:30 p.m. on a stretch of the
Promenade des Anglais where the speed limit is 50 km/h. Kerimov himself was behind the wheel and moving
significantly faster then the speed limit when the black
Ferrari unexpectedly crossed the sidewalk and struck a tree.
Photo: Valerie Hatch/Getty. |
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Suleiman Kerimov, the Russian businessman listed by
Forbes as the 72nd richest person in the world, was
seriously injured on Saturday in an major automobile
accident that saw another Ferrari Enzo completely
destroyed, in Nice. Photo: Kommersant. |
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“The accident
may have occurred because the driver lost control,” a
spokesman said.
At the Marseille hospital centre, which unites four
hospitals, including Conception, where Kerimov is being
cared for, Kommersant was told that Kerimov's family
had requested that information on his condition not be made
public. It became known that evening, however, that Kerimov
had received numerous burns and a head injury and that his
condition was worsening. Doctors were forced to place him on
artificial respiration. At Saint Roche Hospital, they stated
that the name of the passenger in the Ferrari is unknown
because she was admitted “with no name indicated.” Doctors
declined to specify the nature of her injuries.
Kamilla Spence, vice president of BIN Bank, in which Kerimov
hold almost 20 percent of the stock, told Kommersant
that “at the present time, Mr. Kerimov is alive and doctors
are controlling his condition.” She also added that the bank's
President Mikhail Shishkhanov has flown from the United
States to Marseille. Many members of the Dagestani diaspora
have flown from Moscow to France as well.
Kerimov is a member of the Russian State Duma, deputy
chairman of the Committee on Physical Fitness, Sports and
Youth Affairs, and a member of the LDPR faction. LDPR leader
Vladimir Zhirinovsky called the incident “a usual traffic
accident” and said that Kerimov would receive “due
attention.” “If it had been an explosion, you could think
that it was something like murder… This is a usual traffic
accident, a purely technical moment, chance, and nothing
more,” Zhirinovsky said. He suggested that the cause of the
accident was “objective.” “There may have been sun. Maybe he
could have been putting on sunglasses and was poorly
oriented. We have to wait for information from the French
police about what really happened. Maybe the car was
defective. We don't know anything,” he said.
Report courtesy of
Kommersant
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