All the blame for the Angrois railway accident lies with the driver, according to the prosecutor in the case, Mario Piñeiro. In the final stretch of the trial that began in October, in the turn of the enunciation of the conclusions, the Public Ministry withdrew its initial request for four years in prison for Andrés Cortabitarte, former security director of the Railway Infrastructure Administrator, Adif. For this, he endorsed the arguments of the State Attorney's Office.
This change actually means returning to the initial dynamics of the investigation of a case that will be seen for judgment on July 27, ten years and three days after the accident. It was the pressure from the European Union that triggered the accusation of Cortabitarte, for whom the victims' associations maintain the request for four years in prison, the same thing that they and the prosecutor's office continue to request for the driver.
In the very complex program of the trial of the railway catastrophe that cost the lives of 80 people at the entrance of Santiago in 2013, this Tuesday the final phase was entered. Before, the criminal and civil parts had been developed in the special compound of the City of Culture that the Xunta enabled to host a macro process with more than 150 parties. These, often represented by a single lawyer, had to clarify if they modified their initial conclusions or if they maintained them.
And in this process, the apparent surprise has emerged, at least the novelty in regards to the trial, of the withdrawal of the Public Ministry's accusation against the representative of Adif, who was the only senior position on the bench, which he occupies with the machinist. In the initial letter, the prosecutor Mario Piñeiro maintained that the accident would have been avoided if he had "assessed and managed the risk of speeding" in the section of the accident.
With the correction made in the conclusions process, which this Wednesday will explain in detail in its report, the Prosecutor's Office goes on to affirm that in the exercise of his functions the defendant "did not violate the duty he held as head of the service and acted in accordance with the procedures included in the management system approved by the national safety authority”.
Thus, for the Public Ministry, the possible responsibility of Adif for the lack of the maximum security system, Ertms, which ends just before the curve, disappears.
The thesis of the State Attorney's Office is also assumed that other lines circulate at the same speed, 200 kilometers per hour, with the other, less reliable system, the Asfa.
The change of path of the Prosecutor's Office means a return to the origins of the investigation, when Judge Luis Aláez tried on several occasions, before leaving the case, to impute high officials not only from Adif, but also from Renfe. This initiative was opposed by the Prosecutor's Office and was overthrown by the Provincial Court of A Coruña. Thus the summary focused on the driver José Garzón Amo. With another judge, an attempt was made to close the case as the only defendant. The victims appealed to the Court of A Coruña.
In the middle, the content of the report of the European Railway Agency was known, despite the efforts of the minister Ana Pastor so that it was not made public. It was devastating against an instruction based on a report from the Railway Accident Investigation Commission appointed by the Ministry. Thus, the investigation was reopened, with Cortabitarte as the defendant along with the driver.
As of July 27, Judge Elena Fernández Currás will have to decide in the sentence if, as the prosecutor Cortabitarte maintains, he is not responsible, so that the accident was due solely to the mistake of the driver who led him to enter at 190 kilometers per hour in a curve limited to 80 kilometers or if both are guilty.
There is also the possibility that she considers that in neither of the two cases there are elements to establish a criminal conviction, a possibility that the magistrate has revealed throughout the trial, as pointed out by the journalist David Reinero, from the Galician digital Plaza Pública, the main specialist in the catastrophe.
