Key day in the Alvia trial with the statement of the former ADIF security chief

Andrés Cortabitarte’s statement is scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. this Thursday His defense has had a week to prepare his strategy after the driver’s statement The statement will, predictably, focus on the train driver’s confusion Just one week after The train driver’s statement, at 9:30 am this Thursday, the trial for the Alvia train accident that derailed in Angrois on July 24, 2013 and in which 80 people died, is resumed in Santiago de Compostela (A Coruña). All eyes will be on Andrés Cortabitarte. The former ADIF security chief will sit on the defendant’s bench to testify as a defendant. His defense has managed to buy time, specifically seven days, to prepare his strategy after the appearance of the driver, Francisco José Garzón Amo. The slap that the father of one of the victims gave Cortabitarte served his lawyer to request that his statement be postponed. He alleged that the former senior official was very “affected” by what happened. A request that was made as soon as the train driver’s appearance was over and was highly criticized by the victims and the train driver’s own lawyer, who consider that this represents favorable treatment for Cortabitarte after the driver’s statement. Both the driver and Cortabitarte are accused of 80 crimes of homicide, 145 injuries and another of damages due to serious professional negligence, each of them in the exercise of their responsibilities. Disconnection of the ERTMS system The Prosecutor’s Office maintains that the accident would not have happened if ADIF and Cortabitarte would have evaluated and managed the danger of the curve. In his statement before the judge in 2017, Cortabitarte assured that he was unaware of the project change on the Ourense-Santiago line that meant eliminating the continuous speed control system (ERTMS) from the last kilometers of the route, including the curve in which the accident occurred. In addition, he tried to divert responsibilities by pointing to Renfe and Ineco, the consulting company in which Renfe and Adif share more than half of the shareholders. Everything seems to indicate that Cortabitarte’s line of defense will focus on emphasizing the train driver’s confusion in driving in the last kilometers before the curve and that made him enter a curve limited to 80 at 191 kilometers per hour. Precisely the driver focused his statement on the lack of safety measures and signaling on the track, the shortcomings in his training as a driver of that train and the call from the controller in the minutes before the derailment. According to him, he made him lose his place in a monotonous line in which he did not fail to comply with any of the signals. Next week the witnesses will begin to testify Cortabitarte’s statement is the only one scheduled for this week. After her, for the last week of October, the beginning of the declarations of the witnesses is foreseen. On Tuesday, October 25, several agents of the National Police will testify (the instructor of the report, the secretary, the head of the National Police brigade, an officer and six other agents). On Wednesday the 26th, the train inspector who spoke with the driver, the Prosegur employee who was traveling on the train as security personnel, another from Renfe who was also in the convoy and the driver from Medina del Campo to Ourense are summoned. Thursday the 27th there are two neighbors left who initially helped the train driver, the head of traffic at the Santiago station and the head of train drivers from the Galician management of Renfe Operadora.