site.btaTempe Train Crash Trial Adjourned until September

The trial over the 2023 Tempe train crash, which claimed the lives of 57 people, has been adjourned until September after prosecutors formally filed charges against the 36 defendants, eKathimerini reported.

When proceedings resume after the summer recess, the court is expected to begin examining evidence. Prosecutors are expected to call their witnesses, including relatives of the passenger train's driver, who was among those killed in the collision.

According to the indictment, the prosecution's case will centre on the allegation that the defendants were aware of serious deficiencies in the railway safety systems on the Larissa–Neoi Pori section of the network. Prosecutors argue that they knew the signalling, remote control and European Train Control System (ETCS) had been out of operation since 2019, while the GSM-R railway radio communication system had been functioning only partially since 2018.

The trial began in April, with hearings being held in a specially adapted courtroom at the University of Larissa.

Thirty-three of the defendants face felony charges of disrupting rail safety, an offense that carries the possibility of a life sentence. They have also been charged with offenses including involuntary manslaughter and causing bodily harm through negligence, eKathimerini noted.

On February 28, 2023, a head-on collision between a freight train and a passenger train on the main Athens–Thessaloniki line killed 57 people, most of them university students. It was the deadliest rail accident in Greek history. The tragedy sparked widespread public outrage and demonstrations across Greece, with protesters accusing successive governments of delaying the installation of essential railway safety systems. Relatives of the victims have also accused the authorities of attempting to conceal evidence.