Diogo Jota and his brother were not speeding in the moments before their fatal crash in Spain last week, eyewitnesses have claimed.
The testimony contradicts the findings of the Guardia Civil, which believes their Lamborghini was travelling at excessive speed before veering off the A-52 motorway in Cernadilla, Zamora.
The bodies of the Portuguese footballer, 28, who played for Liverpool, and his brother Andre Silva, 25, were found burned beyond recognition after the vehicle erupted into a fireball upon impact.
But Jose Aleixo Duarte, a Portuguese lorry driver who says he witnessed the accident, told the Correio da Manhã newspaper that he had been overtaken by the Lamborghini shortly before the crash and insisted the vehicle was not speeding.
‘It’s not true what they’re saying,’ he said. Duarte also claimed another driver had witnessed the event, recorded video footage of the aftermath and tried in vain to extinguish the flames.
Duarte pointed to what he described as poor road conditions, adding that the stretch of motorway where the crash occurred is known to be problematic.
A second lorry driver, Jose Azevedo, also contradicted the police’s preliminary findings. He recorded the burning vehicle moments after the crash and said he stopped to help but was unable to intervene.
‘I filmed it, I stopped, I tried to help, but unfortunately I couldn’t do anything,’ he said in a video shared publicly.
‘I didn’t know who was inside. My deepest condolences to the family.’
Azevedo added: ‘The family has my word, they weren’t speeding. They overtook me very calmly. I could clearly make out the make and colour of the car.’
He added that he drives that same road six days a week and is familiar with reckless driving in the area, but stressed that this was not one of those cases.
‘It was dark, yes, but I saw the vehicle clearly. Sadly, it ended in tragedy,’ he said.
