Greek railroad inspector charged in connection to accident that killed 57 people

A Greek railroad inspector was charged and remanded in custody on Friday more than a month after the train disaster that killed 57 people in central Greece and shocked the country.

This inspector of station managers who were on duty at the time of the accident was charged with “disruption of traffic safety” causing the death of many people and “negligent homicide”, according to the same source.

Dimitris Nikolaou is the second person to be detained in this case. He faces a sentence ranging from ten years to life in prison.

Vassilis Samaras, the station manager on duty at the time of the accident is also in custody. He had admitted his responsibility for the head-on collision between a passenger train and a freight train in Tempé, near the city of Larissa.

Without any warning, the two trains travelled for several kilometres on the same track before colliding head-on, causing a fire and the destruction of two locomotives and two cars of the passenger train.

Many of the accident’s 57 victims were young people returning to Thessaloniki, a university town, after a long weekend.

Protests have broken across the country since the accident. At the height of demonstrations on 8 March, 65,000 people took to the streets across the country, including over 40,000 in Athens.