Giulia Bongiorno, defence attorney for the parents of Gaia Vonfreymann, one of two 16-year-old girls knocked down and killed by a film director's son in the centre of the city before Christmas, on Monday called for respect for the victims and their families.
"This isn't a video game; there are two dead girls, two girls in flesh and blood, and four parents who, in the face of what is happening, every day feel their pain amplified," former minister Bongiorno told Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
She called on the public and the media to "resist the temptation to treat these girls as if they are characters in a TV show". Investigators are using surveillance footage from the site of the crash to help determine what happened.
Pietro Genovese, the 20-year-old son of director Paolo, is currently under house arrest and is accused of vehicular homicide.
The girls are thought to have tried to cross the very busy road despite the pedestrian-crossing light being red.
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