Former governor denies charges in relation to Tempe railway disaster

A former regional governor has denied charges of dereliction of duty and other misdemeanors related to activities conducted at site of the deadly Tempe railway collision, which was covered over aggregate and concrete in the aftermath of the deadly disaster.

Kostas Agorastos, who was governor of Thessaly from 2011 to 2023, was testifying before an appeals investigating magistrate in the city of Larissa.

He said that while the regional authority assisted at the scene with machinery, the crash site was under the authority of the police and fire service.

In February, a prosecutor ordered an investigation into the covering of the accident site with aggregate and concrete on the grounds that it may have destroyed crucial evidence into the causes of the crash as well as victims’ remains.

The February 2023 collision killed 57 people, most of them university students returning from a long weekend break.