Alex Trelinski
A TRAIN driver and a rail head of safety have both received two and a half year prison sentences following the July 2013 Santiago de Compostela train disaster, where 80 passengers died and 143 were injured.
The train derailed at high speed on a bend with the Galicia Superior Court ruling that there was a lack of a safety system that ‘left all responsibility in the hands of the driver.
He did not brake in time after he was distracted by a mobile phone call lasting 100 seconds.
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The trial concluded a year ago where the driver Francisco Jose Garzon Amo, and the director of safety for Adif, Andres Cortabitarte were convicted on multiple homicide and injury charges.
Both men have been barred from working in their professions for four and a half years and been ordered to pay compensation via civil liability insurance polices to the victims of more than €25 million.
The sentences can be appealed.
The trial lasted 10 months following an investigation that lasted the best part of a decade.
Judge Maria Elena Fernandez Curras said Garzon Amo did not brake in time on the sharp bend on the approach to Santiago station,
The speed reached 176 kilometres per hour- over double the 80 kilometres maximum.
Both defendants, according to the judge, breached the duty of care that their jobs carried, since their actions involved ‘an unlawful increase in the risk of an accident that they were obliged to prevent and trained to avoid’.
On the 11th anniversary of the tragedy on Wednesday, relatives of those who died and survivors called for an an ‘exemplary sentence’ to be handed down to Cortabitarte as a message to ensure the accident is not repeated.
They said he approved two decisions on the high-speed section where the train derailed that led to the driver’s error not being over-ridden, namely the disconnection of the ERTMS emergency brake and works that reduced safety standards outside Santiago station.
