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A stationmaster accused of inflicting Greece’s deadliest practice catastrophe was charged with negligent murder and jailed pending trial Sunday, whereas Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis apologized for any duty Greece’s authorities could bear for the tragedy.
An inspecting Justice of the Peace and a prosecutor agreed that a number of counts of murder in addition to expenses of inflicting bodily hurt and endangering transportation security ought to be introduced towards the railway worker.
Not less than 57 individuals, a lot of them of their teenagers and 20s, had been killed when a northbound passenger practice and a southbound freight practice collided late Tuesday north of town of Larissa, in central Greece.
The 59-year-old stationmaster allegedly directed the 2 trains touring in reverse instructions onto the identical monitor. He spent 7 1/2 hours Sunday testifying concerning the occasions main as much as the crash earlier than he was charged and ordered held.
“My consumer testified in truth, with out fearing if doing so would incriminate him,” Stephanos Pantzartzidis, the stationmaster’s lawyer, advised reporters. “The choice (to jail him) was anticipated, given the significance of the case.”
Pantzartzidis implied that others in addition to his consumer share blame, saying that judges ought to examine whether or not multiple stationmaster ought to have been working in Larissa on the time of the collision.
“For 20 minutes, he was accountable for (practice) security in all central Greece,” the lawyer mentioned of his consumer.
Greek media have reported that the automated signaling system within the space of the crash was not functioning, making the stationmaster’s mistake doable. Stationmasters alongside that a part of Greece’s principal trunk line talk with one another and with practice drivers through two-way radios, and the switches are operated manually.
The prime minister promised a swift investigation of the collision and mentioned the brand new Greek transportation minister would launch a security enchancment plan. As soon as a brand new parliament is in place, a fee additionally will probably be named to analyze many years of mismanagement of the nation’s railway system, Mitsotakis mentioned.
In an preliminary assertion Wednesday, Mitsotakis had mentioned the crash resulted from a “tragic human error.” Opposition events pounced on the comment, accusing the prime minister of making an attempt to cowl up the state’s position and making the inexperienced stationmaster a scapegoat.
“I owe everybody, and particularly the victims’ kinfolk, an enormous apology, each private and on behalf of all who ruled the nation for a few years,” Mitsotakis wrote Sunday on Fb. “In 2023, it’s inconceivable that two trains transfer in several instructions on the identical monitor and nobody notices. We can not, we don’t need to, and we should not cover behind the human error.”
Greece’s railways lengthy suffered from power mismanagement, together with lavish spending on tasks that had been finally deserted or considerably delayed, Greek media have reported in a number of exposes. With state railway firm Hellenic Railways billions of euros in debt, upkeep work was delay, in accordance with information stories.
A retired railway union chief, Panayotis Paraskevopoulos, advised Greek newspaper Kathimerini that the signaling system within the space monitored by the Larissa stationmaster malfunctioned six years in the past and was by no means repaired.
Police and prosecutors haven’t recognized the stationmaster, in keeping with Greek regulation. Nevertheless, Hellenic Railways, also referred to as OSE, revealed the stationmaster’s title Saturday, in an announcement suspending the corporate inspector who appointed him. The stationmaster additionally has been suspended.
Greek media have reported that the stationmaster, a former porter with the railway firm, was transferred to a Ministry of Training desk job in 2011, when Greece’s collectors demanded reductions within the variety of public workers. The 59-year-old was transferred again to the railway firm in mid-2022 and began a 5-month course to coach as a stationmaster.
Upon finishing the course, he was assigned to Larissa on Jan. 23, in accordance with his personal Fb submit. Nevertheless, he spent the following month month rotating amongst different stations earlier than returning to Larissa in late February, days earlier than the Feb. 28 collision, Greek media reported.
On Sunday, railway unions organized a protest rally in central Athens attended by about 12,000 individuals in accordance with authorities.
5 individuals had been arrested and 7 cops had been injured when a gaggle of greater than 200 masked, black-clad people began throwing items of marble, rocks, bottles and firebombs at officers, who gave chase alongside a central avenue within the metropolis whereas utilizing tear gasoline and stun grenades.
In Thessaloniki, about 3,000 individuals attended two protest rallies. A number of of the crash victims had been college students on the metropolis’s Aristotle College, Greece’s largest, with over 50,000 college students.
The bigger protest, organized by left-wing activists, marched to a authorities constructing. No incidents had been reported at that occasion.
Within the different, staged by Communist Get together members on the White Tower, town’s signature monument, there was a quick scuffle with police when the protesters tried to position a banner on the monument.
“The Communist Get together organized a symbolic protest right this moment in entrance of the White Tower to denounce the crime in Tempe, as a result of it’s a premeditated crime, against the law dedicated by the corporate and the bourgeois state that helps these corporations,” Giannis Delis, a communist lawmaker, advised The Related Press.
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