The trial of 36 people on charges related to the 2023 train tragedy begins in the Greek city of Larissa on Mondayin which 57 people died. As part of this process, more than 350 witnesses will be heard, TASR writes, according to the report of the AFP agency.
- In Larissa, the trial begins with thirty thousand defendants for the railway tragedy.
- The court will hear more than three hundred and fifty witnesses, including survivors and surviving victims.
- Among the accused are railway workers and former employees of Ferrovie dello Stato.
- Thirty-three defendants face life in prison in the Tempe train crash.
- The railway workers declared a twenty-four-hour strike as a protest and a common memory.
This is one of the biggest trials in Greece in recent decades. The court will hear statements from survivors and family members of the victims. Due to the large number of participants, the process will be held in one of the auditoriums at the University of Larissa.
Among the accused are the station master, who was on duty at the time of the accident, other railway workers and, for example, two former employees of the Italian parent company Ferrovie dello Statowhich owns the main Greek rail carrier.
Up to 33 of all defendants face life imprisonment. None of them are currently in prison, but some have been in pre-trial detention. Shortly before the accident, both trains had been traveling on the same track for more than ten minutes without triggering an alarm. The passenger train was directed to the wrong track, and according to investigators, malfunctioning signaling equipment, deficiencies in staffing, supervision and maintenance contributed to this error.
The tragedy highlighted the poor state of safety measures on Greek railways, which has not improved even with the use of European Union grants to modernize them and repeated warnings from unions. Chief European Prosecutor Laura Kövesi said last year that the accident could have been avoided if an EU-funded railway signaling project had been completed on time.
Railroad workers on Monday engaged in a 24-hour strike called by the union “by an act of common memory, protest and democratic vigilance”. The victims of the tragic collision between a passenger and freight train on February 28, 2023 near the city of Tempe in central Greece were mainly students returning to school after a long weekend. AFP reports that some probably survived the crash but lost their lives in the subsequent fire that broke out after the accident. Last month, tens of thousands of people across Greece took part in rallies in solidarity with the victims of the tragedy.
