ROME (AP) The three suspects in Italys cable car disaster that killed 14 people were allowed to leave prison Sunday after a judge indicated that most of the blame fell on just one of them: a service technician who intentionally disabled the cars emergency brake because it kept locking spontaneously.

Judge Donatella Banci Buonamici said there wasnt sufficient evidence suggesting the owner of the Mottarone cable car company, Luigi Nerini, or the maintenance chief, Enrico Perocchio, knew that the technician had deactivated the brake on several occasions even before the May 23 disaster.

After evaluating prosecutors request for continued detention of the three, Buonamici ordered the managers freed while allowing the technician, Gabriele Tadini, to leave under house arrest. The three men, who remain under investigation, left Verbania prison early Sunday, accompanied by their lawyers.

Fourteen people were killed when the lead cable of the Mottarone funicular overlooking Lake Maggiore in northern Italy snapped and the emergency brake failed to prevent the cable car from reeling backward down the support line. The cable car pulled off the line entirely when it hit a support pylon, crashed to the ground and then rolled down the mountain until it was stopped by a stand of trees.

The lone survivor, 5-year-old Eitan Biran, remains hospitalized but conscious, with his aunt looking after him. Eitans parents, his younger brother and his great-grandparents were killed in the disaster.

It is not known why the pulling cable snapped.