Station chief in Greece faces life imprisonment – Reuters

Five days after the accident, the station manager of the city of Larisa was arrested. The 59-year-old official is charged with “the death of a large number of people,” the country’s judiciary said, Spiegel said. He faces a prison sentence of ten years to life. The station master, whose name has not been released in the interest of the investigation, admitted to having missed the change of route of the trains.According to public broadcaster ERT, the man only held for 40 days, after completing a three-month course. According to the Kathimerini newspaper, he worked alone at the station for four days before the accident, despite the fact that it was a long holiday weekend with heavy rail traffic.On the way between Athens and the port city of Thessaloniki, shortly before midnight on Tuesday, a passenger train and an oncoming freight train collided head-on. It was the biggest railway accident in the country’s history. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis asked relatives of the victims in an online appeal for “forgiveness” over the weekend. “It is not possible that in 2023 in Greece, two trains went towards each other on the same route, and no one noticed,” he wrote. Addressing the station chief, Mitsotakis stressed, “We cannot, will not and must not hide behind human error.”The disaster sparked massive protests in Greece. Over the weekend, people across the country took to the streets in several cities. Police say around 12,000 people gathered outside the parliament building in Athens to demonstrate. They launched hundreds of black balloons into the sky in memory of those who died in the tragedy. Within hours, protests in the Greek capital escalated into violence. Some protesters set trash cans on fire and threw Molotov cocktails, which police responded with tear gas and stun grenades, AFP reported. Seven officers were injured and taken to hospital, police said. Five people were arrested. The situation in Athens calmed down again on Sunday afternoon.