Protesters returned to the streets of Thessaloniki on Saturday amid public anger over the deadliest rail catastrophe in Greece's historical past.
Days of rallies have taken place throughout the nation in mild of Tuesday's crash, which killed at the very least 57 individuals, as a consequence of a perceived lack of security measures within the transport community.
The stationmaster concerned is ready to look earlier than a prosecutor and an inspecting Justice of the Peace Sunday after his deposition was postponed a day earlier.
The 59-year-old is accused of inserting two trains working in reverse instructions on the identical observe, leading to a passenger prepare slamming right into a freight service late Tuesday at Tempe, 380 kilometres north of Athens.
The federal government has blamed human error, and the stationmaster faces a number of costs of negligent murder and bodily hurt, in addition to disrupting transportation.
Stephanos Pantzartzidis, the stationmaster’s lawyer, informed reporters ready outdoors the courthouse Saturday within the central Greek metropolis of Larissa that “crucial new proof emerged that power us to request a postponement” in his consumer's deposition.
The lawyer did not elaborate. Per Greek legislation, authorities haven't launched the accused’s identify.
On Saturday, one of many three members of an professional panel named by the federal government to research and subject a report on the collision resigned after opposition events and a few media retailers panned his appointment.
Thanasis Ziliaskopoulos served as chairman and CEO of the nation’s prepare operator from 2010 to 2015 and is at the moment the chairman of the Greek company in command of privatizing state-owned property.
Most of the individuals killed have been of their teenagers and 20s
Funerals for a number of the individuals killed within the crash, lots of them of their teenagers and 20s, came about in northern Greece. The power of the crash and the ensuing hearth difficult the duty of figuring out the victims, which is being accomplished by way of next-of-kin DNA testing.
Some households have but to obtain the stays of their family members. Police mentioned 54 victims have been positively recognized.
Rallies protesting the situations that led to the tragedy continued Saturday. A peaceable rally in central Athens organized by the Communist Celebration’s youth wing drew over a thousand individuals.
A rally organized by a rail staff' union is scheduled for Sunday morning, additionally in Athens. The union, which is organizing rolling labour strikes, has requested members of the general public to participate.
Greek media have printed damning accounts of mismanagement and infrastructure neglect in Greece’s railways.
A former head of the railway workers’ union, Panayotis Paraskevopoulos, informed the Greek newspaper Kathimerini that the signalling system within the space the place the accident occurred malfunctioned six years in the past and was by no means repaired.
Stationmasters and prepare drivers talk through two-way radio and observe switches are operated manually over components of the primary rail line from the capital Athens to the northern metropolis of Thessaloniki.
The stationmaster, who previously labored as a porter on the state-owned Hellenic Railways, or OSE, was transferred to a desk job on the Ministry of Schooling in 2011 when Greece’s collectors demanded personnel cuts in railways.
He transferred again to the corporate in June 2022 and was appointed stationmaster in Larissa, an necessary railway hub, in January, after 5 months of coaching.
Police early Friday searched a rail coordination workplace in Larissa, eradicating proof as a part of an ongoing investigation.
The since privatized prepare and freight operator, renamed Hellenic Prepare, is now owned by Italy’s Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane.
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