The driver accused of causing the road accident near Codreanca village in Strășeni district, which resulted in the death of five people, was driving the car without a license. The license was provisionally seized on July 15 and the young man is under investigation for driving in an advanced state of inebriation in the capital city at the end of June, IPN reports.

The Prosecutor General’s Office started a criminal case after the accident that happened on August 10. Even though he is in the hospital, the 22-year-old man was detained and prosecutors asked for preventive detention for a period of 30 days for him.

Prosecutors also said that the young man was convicted of theft in 2022 and of robbery in 2023.

The accident occurred on the morning of August 10. Preliminarily, it was established that one of the drivers did not make sure it was safe and, performing an overtaking maneuver over the solid line, crashed the car into another car coming from the opposite direction. In one of the two cars that were engulfed in flames, a Mitsubishi, a 17-year-old teenager and a 56-year-old woman burned to death. In the second car, an Opel, the driver and two passengers, a 32-year-old woman and a 54-year-old woman, died. Before the rescuers arrived, passersby managed to get five children, aged 6, 7 and 13, out of the Mitsubishi, and a child aged one year and another one aged 9 from the Opel. All five were taken to the Mother and Child Institute and three of them are in serious condition, in the Intensive Care Unit.

For such accidents resulting in the death of several people, the penalty is 6 to 10 years in prison and ban on driving.