Tempi Trial: Relatives of victims give testimony – "The court is all we have left"
Harrowing testimony from relatives of the 57 victims at the trial into the rail disaster at Tempi. The trial continues on Tuesday.
Tempi Trial: Railway a "time bomb" – Testimony from victims' relatives
The hearing in the trial over the rail disaster at Tempi concluded today with testimony from Vasileios Pavlidis, brother of Andreas Pavlidis, one of the 57 victims, according to Dikastiko.gr.
Mr. Pavlidis addressed key issues in the case file, including contract 717, the GSM-R system and Remote Management. He argued that the former general secretaries of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport should have been called to testify before the examining judge. He also stressed that silicone oils cannot be held responsible for the fireball that erupted after the collision of the two trains.
"We genuinely believe in the institution of Justice. This court is all we have left," Mr. Pavlidis said as he concluded his testimony.
Parents of Agapi Tsaklidou: "The state was hostile towards us"
Earlier, the parents of Agapi Tsaklidou testified – Georgios Tsaklidis and Eleni Vasara. Ms. Vasara, in an extended testimony, addressed the handling of audio evidence in the case file, the so-called "muddying," the role of prosecutors and judicial officials in Larissa, as well as the conditions of the collision and examination of bones.
"The railway was a time bomb in motion," Ms. Vasara testified.
With regard to the bones – for which a request has been submitted by lawyer Pavlos Aslanidis – Ms. Vasara called for those found in the second carriage and in the buffet to be re-examined in specialist laboratories, and for those that remained unclear to be identified. "I find it incomprehensible that there could be a small bone of Agapi's and it remains unclaimed. Enough desecration of our dead children," she said.
Ms. Vasara also denounced gaps in the case file and a hostile stance by the state towards the families. "The case file closed with major gaps. We faced a state that was hostile towards us parents," she stressed. Referring to the railway's operating conditions, she testified: "We found that trains were running at increased speeds. The railway was tragically understaffed. The ministers knew."
On the cause of the tragedy, Ms. Vasara emphasised: "Everything started with the fragmentation of OSE, with the privatisation of the most profitable section. There was no risk management. Cost weighed against the safety of human life." Addressing the responsibilities of the defendants and organisations, she concluded: "What we want is for those who are responsible and culpable to go to prison."
Request for audio recordings and new witnesses
Georgios Tsaklidis requested that three audio recordings from the case file be heard in court – conversations between drivers and station managers who are not directly involved in the case – in order to demonstrate, as he stressed, the "chaos" that prevailed at the railway and the inadequacy of the General Traffic Regulations for safe train operation.
Mr. Tsaklidis also requested that representatives of the TOMH-ALSTOM consortium and former OSE chairman Panagiotis Terezakis be called as witnesses. Regarding the Jowett report, he noted that some relatives disagree with the methodology that led to the conclusion about silicone oils, while regarding the video from Leptokarya with a commercial train, he noted that the Criminal Investigations Directorate found "discontinuity at certain points."
New request for examination of defendant's mobile phone
Shortly before the session concluded, the counsel supporting the prosecution who had submitted a request for the mobile phone of the night shift station manager defendant filed a new request: that the court set a specific deadline for the Criminal Investigations Directorate of the Greek Police to submit the expert report on the device.
The trial into the rail disaster at Tempi continues on Tuesday with fresh testimony from relatives of the victims.
Source: Dikastiko.gr