Before the appellant investigator, Sotiris Bakaimiwhich investigates his case Tempe disaster, the former Head of the Larissa Inspection Department of the Traffic Support Service (railways) of Central and Southern Greece is expected to be found today, who at the end of March after his apology, he had been remanded in custody with the agreement of the investigator and prosecutor.

The Inspector will be in the coroner’s office today for two reasons. The first concerns the call from the investigator himself for to apologize again as the indictment has been redefined based on the number of injured -181- which has now been clarified.

For the same reason, it is expected that the pre-trial station master and the station masters of the afternoon shift, who were released with restrictive conditions, will be called in the next period.

It should be noted that the acts for which the Inspector is accused remain the same. That is, the felony of disturbing the safety of transportation and the misdemeanors of serially negligent homicide, serially negligent aggravated battery, and serially negligent simple bodily harm.

However, the Inspector is expected today to submit to the investigator and new ready for release of. The previous one (in essence it was the appeal against the temporary detention warrant issued against him by the investigator), in April, was rejected by the Three-Member Appeals Council of Larisa as, according to the reasoning of the Council, it is considered very likely, in the event that the Inspector, even under restrictive conditions, to commit criminal acts in order to cover up the crime for which he is accused, taking advantage of his many years of service in the OSE and his connections in the specific organization.

We remind you that the indictment against the Inspector concerns the fact that, as a shift manager, he placed the station master, who was inexperienced, on the evening shift of February 28 alone, and on that fateful night, he wrongly routed the Intercity on the descent line to Thessaloniki, resulting in a collision a few minutes later in Tempi with the commercial train coming down from Thessaloniki bound for Athens.

The rejection proposal of the Prosecutor

In his proposal regarding the Inspector’s request for release from prison, the then Appeals Prosecutor of Larisa, Mr. Stamatis Daskalopoulos, who recently retired, initially stated, among other things, that: “the applicant had, during the critical period of January and February 2023, the aforementioned qualities. Primarily as the Head of the Larissa Inspection Department of the Traffic Support Service (railways) of Central and Southern Greece and as specifically responsible for the distribution of traffic staff shifts and the preparation of the service program of the stationmasters on duty at the Larissa Railway Station he had absolute knowledge of the conditions work in this area. He was well aware that there was a substantial difference between the formal obligations regarding the hours of service of the serving station masters, which he initially trained, and the actually applicable and applied in practice by them”.

In other words, the Inspector knew that the station masters of the afternoon shift who typically had to finish their shift at 11 p.m. in fact they would leave quite early leaving the night shift stationmaster alone.

Also, as the Prosecutor states, the Inspector had “full knowledge, in view of the minimal to zero experience” of the station master, that the tasks he set him to implement alone in a “difficult and nervous, railway station, such as that of Larissa, which is junction with frequent crossing of a proportionally large number of trains’ was ‘difficult to complex’ for his ‘particularly low cognitive and experience level’.

The Prosecutor, finally arriving at the request for release, proposed this be rejected Mrinnocent, as he stated in his proposal, given the many years of service of the Inspector in the OSE, “if he is released, it is very likely that he will commit other crimes, in order to organize, plan and succeed in concealing further evidence, which substantiates the felony for which the above criminal prosecution was brought against him and he was charged by the Appellate-Investigator of the Court of Appeal of Larisa”.

The Prosecutor notes that house arrest with electronic surveillance “is not enough to prevent him from committing crimes with the above cover-up purpose, such as e.g. embezzlement of documents or moral complicity in it, moral complicity in false testimony by exerting pressure on employees of the OSE or forgery (forgery) or moral complicity in it, etc…. his communication at any time with former his associates in the OSE or other official agents of this organization, or with other persons, through whom it is easy with this communication to organize and succeed in committing crimes to cover up the crime for which he is accused. The commission of these is excluded or limited sufficiently and drastically only by the continuation of his temporary detention imposed for these reasons”.

Rejection by the Board of Appeals as well

Finally, on April 24, the Three-Member Appeals Council of Larisa, after studying the relevant case file and considering the law, rejected the Inspector’s appeal against the temporary detention warrant issued against him by the investigator, pointing out in his reasoning, among other things, that “in view of and of the long tenure of the applicant in his service, and the friendly and official relations, which he has developed with his subordinates, it is possible to carry out moral authorship of illegal acts in order to cover up the crime for which he is charged as a felony”.

Also the Council did special reference and in the incident with the doctor in Volos, characteristically noting that the Inspector: “immediately after the commission of the offense for which he is accused, and in view of his possible disciplinary and criminal prosecution, he hurried and managed to detach, with the mediation of a third party, a doctor of the Volos Hospital, a one-month sick leave, without having previously been examined for the condition he was citing by a doctor in the above Hospital, as can be seen from the conclusion of the EDE of the 5th Ministry of Health under protocol number NTUA ../…-..-2023”.

Today, the second general director of the OSE also apologizes

So far, the Inspector together with the station master, are the only defendants in the Tempe case who have been remanded in custody after their confession to the investigator.

We remind you that the total number of people who have been prosecuted for the accident is 12 and while today it is also expected to come to apologize to the investigator the general manager of the General Directorate of the OSE Network from 21-3-2017 to 15-11 -2019.