Greek stationmaster jailed pending trial after deadly train crash

Larissa stationmaster faces a number of costs of disrupting transport and placing lives in danger.

Lawyer Stefanos Pantzartzidis, who represents the stationmaster being investigated over the deadly collision of two trains, speaks to journalists outdoors the courthouse after his shopper was detained pending trial within the metropolis of Larissa, Greece, March 5, 2023 [Thanos Floulis/ Reuters]

A Greek railway worker has been jailed pending trial over a practice crash that killed not less than 57 individuals.

The 59-year-old man’s detention on Sunday got here as clashes erupted between police and protesters within the Greek capital, Athens.

1000's of individuals had rallied within the metropolis to show for higher security regulation following the head-on collision between a passenger practice and a freight provider on the Athens-Thessaloniki route late within the night of February 28.

The railway worker, who can't be named beneath Greek regulation, was the stationmaster within the central metropolis of Larissa, the place the practice crash happened.

He faces a number of costs of disrupting transport and placing lives in danger.

The transport security cost probably carries a life sentence, in accordance with the eKathimerini newspaper.

“For about 20 cursed minutes he was liable for the security of the entire of central Greece,” his lawyer Stefanos Pantzartzidis mentioned.

Pantzartzidis has beforehand mentioned that his shopper was devastated and had assumed duty “proportionate to him”, however different components have been additionally at play, with out elaborating.

Railway employees say the nation’s rail community has been creaking beneath cost-cutting and underinvestment, a legacy of Greece’s debilitating debt disaster from 2010 to 2018.

Riot police function towards demonstrators throughout clashes in Athens, Greece, Sunday, March 5, 2023 [Yorgos Karahalis/ AP]

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who blamed the crash on human error, acknowledged that a long time of neglect might have contributed to the catastrophe. “As prime minister, I owe everybody, however most of all of the family members of the victims, an apology,” he wrote on his Fb account. “Justice will very quick examine the tragedy and decide liabilities.”

Railway employees’ unions say security techniques all through the rail community have been poor for years as a distant surveillance and signalling system had not been delivered on time. They've referred to as on the federal government to supply a timetable for the implementation of security protocols.

Mitsotakis mentioned that if there had been a distant system in place, “it might have been, in follow, inconceivable for the accident to occur”.

In Athens, some 10,000 individuals gathered by the massive esplanade in entrance of parliament on Sunday to specific sympathy for the lives misplaced and to demand higher security requirements on the rail community.

“That crime received’t be forgotten,” protesters shouted as they launched black balloons into the sky.

A placard learn: “Their insurance policies value human lives.”

Lots of the crash victims have been college students coming back from a weekend break.

No less than 9 younger individuals learning at Thessaloniki’s Aristotle College have been amongst these killed on the passenger practice.

The protests in Athens later descended into violence, with police accusing demonstrators of setting fireplace to garbage bins and throwing Molotov cocktails. Police responded by firing tear fuel and stun grenades to clear the sq..

Seven officers have been reportedly harm, whereas 5 arrests have been made.