The head of the train station confesses to being responsible for the mistake that caused the fatal accident

The Larisa prosecutor’s office has charged the train station manager of this Greek city for “negligent homicide” and other crimes whose penalty would range from ten years in prison to life imprisonment. The man He will appear in court this Thursday. local, but a spokesman for the Greek government has announced that Yesterday he already confessed his responsibility in the error that caused the accident where at least 47 people died.

To the accused, of 59 yearshe is charged with the alleged commission of serial “negligent homicide” and causing bodily harm, in addition to a felony for the disturbance of the safety of transportation traffic.

According to the Greek media, the confession of the railway employee would explain part of the error that placed a passenger train with 342 passengers and 10 crew on the same track where a freight train with two engineers was coming from.

However, Nikos Tsouridis, a retired train driver trainer, said human error did not fully explain what happened: “The station master made a mistake, he admitted it, but surely there should be a failsafe to fall back on“, said.

Greece sold the railway operator TRAINOSE in the framework of its program of international bailout in 2017 to the Italian Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, with the expectation of investing hundreds of millions of euros in railway infrastructure in the coming years.

The Italian operation is responsible for passengers and freight, and the state-controlled Greek OSE for infrastructure. This has led the population to demonstrate in cities such as Athens or Thessaloniki to protest the privatization of the Greek company Hellenic Traincompany of the trains involved in the tragedy, because they believe that the Government is responsible.