Androulakis slams PM’s apology over train disaster as PR stunt
After Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis apologized Sunday for any responsibility his conservative government may bear for the deadliest crash in Greece’s history, socialist leader Nikos Androulakis dismissed the gesture as a publicity stunt.
“This was not a spontaneous apology. Five days after his initial reaction, which was to blame the stationmaster [for the accident], causing a massive outcry, this apology comes off as an attempt to spin [the narrative],” the leader of PASOK-Movement of Change (KINAL), said in an interview with Alpha TV Sunday.
“I say this because I have personally accepted an apology from Mitsotakis in the past, and I know what the results were; I know what the next steps after the apology will be,” said Androulakis, who has blamed Mitsotakis for the wiretapping of his telephone by National Intelligence Service (EYP).
At least 57 people were killed when a northbound passenger train and a southbound freight train collided last Tuesday north of the city of Larissa, in central Greece. A 59-year-old stationmaster was charged with negligent homicide and jailed pending trial Sunday.
