Just 10 months prior to the fatal railway collision in Tempe, central Greece on February 28th, the European Public Prosecutor's Office initiated an investigation. This investigation resulted in a 106-page indictment.
During this time, an anonymous whistleblower presented a comprehensive report, alleging various irregularities in the implementation of contract 717. The contract was for the installment of a telecommand system on the railway network.
The indictment charges 26 non-political individuals, primarily employees of ERGOSE (the Hellenic Railways Organization's projects branch) and officials from the TOMI-Alstom consortium. These individuals have been instructed to acquire copies of the case file and provide written responses.
In a 10-page report submitted to the European Public Prosecutors in Athens, the whistleblower issued a warning. The report stated, "The most concerning aspect is that trains are running without any safety system in 2022, with the way ERGOSE is managing the projects. We have already lost three individuals in the Adendro accident, and recently, due to snowfall, we had a collision in Davleia that injured 11 of our fellow citizens. If the 717 contract had been completed as scheduled in 2016, along with the operational signaling and ETCS (train protection system), none of these incidents would have occurred."
On the night of February 28th, the prophetic report was tragically confirmed. The train traveling the Athens-Thessaloniki route collided with a freight train due to the absence of electronic safety measures and human error. Consequently, 57 individuals lost their lives in the country's most catastrophic rail disaster. The report was deemed credible, prompting the European Public Prosecutor's Office to launch an investigation into the contract 717 case, which was 85% funded by the EU.
