Tempe footage trial to restart as judge quits

Τhe tribunal trying officials implicit missing surveillance footage from the deadly 2023 Tempe train collision has been forced to restart proceedings aft the presiding justice declared she was recusing herself, nullifying 19 erstwhile sessions.

The Larissa Misdemeanor Court is trying the erstwhile president of the Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE), its erstwhile main executive, and an authoritative from information steadfast Interstar Security implicit surveillance footage that was ne'er recovered from a freight station successful Thessaloniki earlier the Tempe train disaster, which killed 57 people.

The situation came to a caput connected Thursday when the justice abruptly near the bench.

“From the start I person been proceeding insults. No more. I will not tolerate it. I will state recusal and the assembly will decide. You are not letting maine speak,” she said earlier stepping down and suspending proceedings.

A judicial assembly subsequently upheld her recusal.

Tensions had already been moving precocious when a radical of lawyers representing victims’ families – led by erstwhile parliamentary speaker Zoe Konstantopoulou – pursued the justice done the courthouse’s second-floor corridors, yet locating her successful the main magistrate’s office. Konstantopoulou demanded an mentation for the judge’s lack from the courtroom mid-session, questioning her impartiality and shouting “Are you under pressure? Perjurers!”

The justice said she had gone to retrieve keys to the grounds storage country to fulfill a procedural petition for copies of seized material.

Antonis Psaropoulos, a lawyer and begetter of a victim, expressed vexation astatine the escalating confrontations. “We want to try a case, not record complaints,” helium said.

“If the lawyers’ relation is lone accusatory, we relatives will ne'er larn the truth,” helium added.

The tribunal had examined lone three witnesses since proceedings began.