(AFP) The driver of a school bus who torched the vehicle to protest Mediterranean migrant deaths claimed on Friday he acted after hearing the voices of drowned children urging him on, media reports said.
Insisting again that he did not want to hurt anyone, the 47-year-old of Senegalese origin reportedly told investigators: “I heard the voices of the children in the sea who were telling me ‘do something spectacular for us without hurting the children’.”
Earlier Friday other reports quoted Sy as saying he planned to use his young passengers as human shields and escape to Africa.
“I wanted to get to the runway at (Milan’s) Linate airport using the children as human shields and from there head to Africa by plane,” Corriere della Sera daily quoted Ousseynou Sy as telling investigators.
