Nine years after the train accident that left 80 dead and more than 140 injured in 2013 near Santiago de Compostela, a river trial opens on Wednesday October 5 to determine the responsibilities in this rail disaster, the most murderer since 1944 in Spain.
Four months of debates, 669 witnesses, 44,460 pages of file... Scheduled until February, the mega trial will be held in a cultural center in this city of Galicia (north-west), exceptionally transformed into a courtroom due to the large number of lawyers and civil parties present.
"Gross professional negligence"
Two people are implicated: the train driver, Francisco Garzon, and the former director of security for Adif (the manager of the Spanish rail network), Andrés Cortabitarte.
The prosecution requested four years in prison for each of the two men, accused of "
homicide resulting from serious professional negligence
".
The amount of damages claimed by the victims amounts to nearly 58 million euros, according to the court.
Read alsoThe tormented memory of the surviving children of Millas
On the evening of July 24, 2013, the Alvia 04155 high-speed train from Madrid had suddenly derailed shortly before arriving in Santiago de Compostela, before crashing into a surrounding wall located four kilometers from the city.
A total of 80 people were killed in this derailment, including 68 Spaniards, two French, two Italians and two Americans.
More than 140 people were also injured in Spain's worst train tragedy since 1944.
The investigation had quickly revealed excessive speed: the Renfe train, a Spanish railway company, was traveling at 179 km/h at the time of the impact, while the speed on this portion was in theory limited to 80 km/h.
According to the investigating magistrates, the train driver was inattentive while he was on the phone with the controller just before the accident.
He would thus have activated the emergency brake of the high-speed train four seconds too late.
“So much grief and pain”
Claiming to be devastated, this man, 52 years old at the time of the accident, had asked “
forgiveness
” from the victims a year after the tragedy.
“
I feel so much grief and pain
,” he said in a letter published by the local newspaper
La Voz de Galicia.
But the victims' associations and his lawyers had considered that he could not be considered solely responsible, the Adif having, according to them, shown negligence because it had not equipped this bend with signaling systems, alert and automatic braking.
“Justice has gone off the rails”
After a long standoff, the Spanish courts ended up relaunching the investigations in 2016 and indicting the head of Adif, who was finally sent to court alongside the train driver.
A decision welcomed by the families, who however regret the absence of questioning of political leaders.
They accuse in particular the former Minister of Equipment and Transport Ana Pastor, a member of the Popular Party (right), of having put pressure on Brussels to prevent the publication of a report critical of Madrid.
"
Not only has the train derailed
" but "
justice has also derailed
", as have "
governments
", "
political leaders
" and "
institutions
", regretted in a press release the association of victims Alvia 04155, which denounces the "
slowness
" of the investigation and the "
lies
" of some elected officials.
"
For years, the state apparatus has worked to exonerate those who have been negligent from liability, trying to shift all the blame to the last link in the chain, the train driver
," regrets the association.
Read alsoThe responsibility of the bus driver at the heart of the Millas accident trial
At his call, dozens of people demonstrated Monday in Madrid in front of parliament, two days before the opening of the trial.
“
We are not going to be silent and we will continue to fight for justice to be done
,” she warned.
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