MOSCOW, October 21 (RIA Novosti) - The lawyer of a snowplow driver involved in the Monday night fatal plane crash killing the chief executive of French energy giant Total said his client was not drunk at the time of the incident, television channel RT reported Tuesday.
"My client is suffering from an acute heart condition; he does not drink at all and his relatives and friends can testify to that. He was sober at the time of the crash," Alexander Karabanov was quoted as saying by RT.
He added that several lawyers are to be involved in the defense of Vladimir Martynenko, a driver of the snowplow. "We don't want the blame for the accident to fall on an ordinary man," the attorney said.
A Falcon 50 business jet crashed late Monday night in the Vnukovo-3 Airport in Moscow after hitting a snow removal vehicle on takeoff. The aircraft was flying from Moscow to Paris with Total CEO Christophe de Margerie as the only passenger on board besides three crew members, also French citizens. All four died in the crash.
Earlier on Tuesday, Russia's Investigative Committee said that the snowplow driver was drunk at the time of the accident.
