The station master at the heart of Greece’s worst rail tragedy was on Thursday granted conditional release from prison ahead of a trial expected to start next year, a justice source said.
Vassilis Samaras, 60, was the station master on the night of the February 28, 2023 disaster that claimed 57 lives.
He was arrested in March 2023 and held in pre-trial detention, but will now move to house arrest, the source said.
More than 30 railway employees and officials face charges over the accident, with the trial not expected to start before the end of the year.
The disaster occurred when a passenger train with around 350 people onboard, mostly students, collided with a freight train near the central city of Larissa shortly before midnight.
Relatives of the victims have said that despite government promises of a full investigation, state authorities wasted time and overlooked vital evidence.
Experts appointed by relatives’ families say the accident site was cleaned of wreckage and topsoil before investigators could fully examine it.
The body of a young woman travelling on the passenger train still remains unaccounted for.
Experts for the families have also claimed that the freight train was carrying undeclared chemicals that caused a huge explosion after the crash, killing people who might otherwise have survived.
In March, the government defeated a censure motion in parliament accusing it of trying to manipulate the investigation into the tragedy.
Greece’s 2,552-kilometre (1,586-mile) rail network has for decades been plagued by mismanagement, poor maintenance and obsolete equipment.
Source: AAP
