Greece train crash trial to resume after courtroom chaos

A long-awaited trial into Greece’s worst train tragedy resumes connected Wednesday, with authorities hoping to debar a repetition of the courtroom chaos that forced its adjournment past month.

Thirty-six radical are connected trial implicit the February 2023 collision that claimed 57 lives, mostly students returning from a carnival weekend.

After a three-year wait, the trial formally began connected March 23. But it made small headway due to the fact that of crowding successful the courtroom successful the cardinal town of Larissa.

Hundreds of radical tried to participate the courtroom to travel the trial. The train catastrophe sparked widespread nationalist choler that has ne'er subsided.

Lawyers complained that the venue was so packed that they hardly had country to unfastened their files and that occurrence information regulations were not respected.

Survivors of the mishap and household members had to sit successful the seats of the accused, astir of whom were absent.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, whose medication has faced aggravated disapproval implicit some the tragedy and the subsequent investigation, connected Sunday blamed the contented connected mediocre organisation.

“There was a superior coordination occupation some successful the introduction checks and successful seating the hundreds of attendees successful the courtroom,” Mitsotakis wrote successful a Facebook post.

He argued that the courtroom — a remodelled league hallway that outgo hundreds of thousands of euros — was “built specifically for this large trial” and was “among the astir functional and modern successful Europe”.

Repeated warnings

Maria Karystianou, a salient subordinate of the relation of victims’ families, aboriginal told reporters that relatives had been “packed similar sardines”.

More than 350 witnesses are owed to beryllium heard astatine the trial, which is expected to take years to scope a verdict.

It is being conducted astir 30 kilometres (nearly 20 miles) from the spot adjacent Tempe, cardinal Greece, where a freight train and a rider locomotive smashed into each different connected February 28, 2023.

Among those to testify are survivors and household members of the victims, some of whom are believed to person burnt to decease aft surviving the archetypal collision.

Those successful the dock see the station maestro connected work connected the nighttime of the accident, different railway officials and two Italian erstwhile employees of the trains’ genitor company, Ferrovie dello Stato.

The two trains had tally connected the aforesaid track for much than 10 minutes without triggering an alarm.

The head-on collision exposed the parlous state of information precautions successful Greece’s railway network, contempt European Union grants for its modernisation and repeated warnings from unions.

On Monday, a abstracted tribunal successful Athens awarded 400,000 euros ($463,000) to the relatives of 1 of the victims, accepting failings by the Greek state.

Evidence thought lost

Thirty-three of the defendants successful the Larissa trial look transgression charges and hazard up to beingness successful prison.

None of the accused are presently successful jail, though some person served clip successful pre-trial detention.

The caput of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, Laura Kovesi, said the collision could person been avoided if the signalling system had been modernised successful clip utilizing European Union funds.

The accident, commonly known arsenic the “Tempe crime”, sparked widespread choler that has ne'er subsided.

Tens of thousands of radical protested nationwide past period to people the third day of the crash.

No governmental authoritative will beryllium successful the dock successful this trial.

Two erstwhile ministers, including ex-transport curate Kostas Karamanlis, were referred to justness by parliament successful a abstracted procedure, but lone look misdemeanour charges astatine present.

Valuable grounds is feared to person been mislaid when, conscionable days aft the collision, a bulldozer levelled the site.

Despite the disaster, Mitsotakis comfortably won re-election conscionable months aboriginal and went connected to decision two parliamentary votes of no-confidence connected the issue.

Source: Agence France-Presse