JUST IN: Tempé train disaster trial postponed due to high tensions in the courtroom
According to recent reports, the following story has emerged from the international scene.
A woman holds a portrait of her niece, victim of the Tempé train disaster, at the court in Larissa, Greece, on Monday, March 23, 2026. THANASSIS STAVRAKIS / AP
Three years after the deadliest train collision in Greece, the trial of thirty-six people, including former railway officials, was to open on Monday, March 23, in Larissa, in a tense atmosphere. But it was adjourned until April 1, shortly after its opening, due to high tensions in the courtroom.
The families of the 57 people killed on February 28, 2023, shouted their anger, denouncing organizational conditions deemed “insulting,” according to a lawyer, and a courtroom too small to accommodate the hundreds of people wanting to attend the trial.
The court of Larissa, in Thessaly, in the center of the country, must determine responsibilities in the head-on collision between two trains on February 28, 2023, which left 57 dead. That evening, in the Tempé valley, a freight train collided with one carrying some 350 people from Athens to Thessaloniki, in the north. The two trains had been traveling on the same lane for more than ten minutes without triggering any alarm system.
Before the trial opened, parents of victims expressed their anger at flaws in the investigation. Several claim, based on desperate phone calls, that their children did not die in the shock of the collision, but were burned alive after the accident.
“As parents, we see all this charade, but we will continue to raise our voices, demand the truth, and do everything we have to do,” said Maria Karystianou, mother of a 19-year-old victim, to journalists before the opening of the trial.
“For the death of my child, who was burned alive, there was neither investigation nor charge. It’s something very, very heavy to carry,” also declared this pediatrician, who plans to launch a political party soon.
“We demand exemplary punishment of those responsible,” demanded Pavlos Aslanidis, president of the Association of Victims’ Families. “It is sad to see that, after three years, no one is in prison.”
The day after the accident, the Greeks discovered with horror the security flaws in their railway network, undermined by years of poor management and outdated signaling systems. Modernization was several years behind schedule, despite the granting of significant European funds and warnings from the unions.
No trains are running in Greece on Monday due to a strike, which, according to the railway workers’ union, is intended to be “an act of collective memory, of protest.”
The site bulldozed
Thirty-three defendants face criminal charges, with potential prison sentences of up to life imprisonment. All appear free, even if some have been in preventive detention.
At least 352 prosecution witnesses are expected to take the stand, including survivors of this collision, which raised an immense wave of anger in the country that has never subsided. Several tens of thousands of people still took to the streets on February 28 to mark the third anniversary of the tragedy.
At the scene of the train accident in the Tempé valley, near Larissa, Greece, on March 1, 2023. AFP
Among the accused are the station manager on duty that evening in Larissa, Vassilios Samaras, who had little experience and was arrested the day after the accident, and two other station managers who had left their post before the end of their shift. They are accused of having committed “acts dangerous to the safety of rail traffic (…) resulting in the death of a large number of people and serious bodily harm to a large number of people,” according to the indictment consulted by Agence France-Presse.
Executives and employees of the Greek Railways, the manager of the rail network, are also on trial, along with two senior officials from the Ministry of Transport, as well as two Italian managers of the Hellenic Train railway company, a subsidiary of the Italian railways, Ferrovie dello Stato.
No political leader will be in the dock, which fuels resentment, while the conservative camp of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has been accused by the opposition and civil society of covering up those responsible for the “Tempé crime.” Two former members of the Mitsotakis government are facing proceedings, but neither has appeared in court.
Valuable evidence was lost when, just days after the collision, the site was bulldozed.
Analysis and Perspective:
This development could have far-reaching consequences for global politics in the months ahead.
World leaders are expected to respond to these developments in the coming days.
We encourage our readers to follow this developing story for the latest information.
Source: This article was originally published in another language by International : Toute l’actualité sur Le Monde.fr. and has been translated and adapted for our global English-speaking audience. Read the original article here.