Police in Italy, Germany, Austria, and Slovenia cooperated to identify the truck driver who allegedly struck and killed Davide Rebellin on Wednesday and was tracked down in Germany.

Rebellin, 51, was riding his bicycle in Montebello Vicentino on Wednesday when he was hit by a truck driver and killed instantly.

The 62-year-old driver is charged with vehicular homicide in Italy, but although he has been located by German authorities, he has not been arrested because the offense is not covered by German criminal law.

According to a report in Il Gazzettino, the truck driver was aware that he had hit Rebellin before fleeing the scene. The paper quotes witnesses as saying that they saw the driver get out of the Volvo truck after the accident, approach Rebellin's body, and drive away again.

The 51-year-old Rebellin, who had just retired from professional cycling in October, was hit by a truck driver while riding his bicycle in Montebello Vicentino just before midday Wednesday and died instantly.

According to both Il Gazzettino and Il Corriere della Sera, the German driver had committed crimes on Italian roads twice before; in 2001 he pleaded guilty to a hit-and-run in Foggia, but the sentence was vacated due to the statute of limitations. In 2014, the same driver was charged with drunk driving in Chieti.

The driver worked for a transportation company based in Recke, northern Germany, and was visiting Italy on Wednesday to pick up cargo from a freight terminal in Verona. After fleeing the scene of Rebellin's death, the driver reportedly returned to Recke after making a delivery to Berlin.

Italian police were able to track the driver through photographs taken by witnesses who rushed to the scene and through footage from a CCTV camera mounted on a 3-meter-high pole in the parking lot of a restaurant in Montebello, near the roundabout where Rebellin was killed.

The driver was tracked down after police matched the photos taken by witnesses with identification papers provided by the driver at the Cargo Village in Verona.

Giuseppe Moscati, Vicenza's carabinieri commander, told Il Gazzettino that investigations in Italy and abroad had allowed him to "meticulously recreate the movements of the German driver" and added: "That is what the local and wider Italian society feels I don't know if it will help ease the pain, but I want to thank everyone (from the investigative agencies to the public) who helped in the investigation of the carabinieri."

Before the police pursued the truck driver, Rebellin's family appealed to him to come forward and explain what had happened.

"The family can accept any human error, but they cannot stand the thought of fleeing the scene. David was an expert. I can't believe it was his mistake," Rebellin's brother Carlo told Il Corriere della Sera.

His mother, Brigida Gattere, said, "If it turns out that he really killed my son and ran away, I hope that justice will be served. No one should die like this."

In the past 48 hours, tributes to Rebellin have poured in from the cycling community. The Italian just quit racing in October, ending a career that spanned three decades. There have also been calls for improved safety conditions for cyclists in Italy and around the world.