A few days after the train tragedy in Tempe, and specifically on March 3, 2023, the former president of the engine drivers, Kostas Genidounias, had spoken about tampering of audio recordings containing the stationmaster’s conversations with engine drivers in Larissa, almost a year before the publication in the newspaper “To Vima”.
The speaker of the New Democracy party, Lazaros Tsavdaridis, despite the request of the entire opposition, had rejected the call of the former president of the engine drivers, Kostas Genidounias, who had sent a request to the Commission to testify and a similar request was made by the family of the dead engine driver with the out-of-court letter sent to the Inquiry.
Speaking to Mega, Kostas Genidounias was saying a few days after the “crime in Tempe”: “It was heard last night that our late colleague had tried to contact the engine drivers in the area by telephone as well. If this is true, it means to me that he has made another attempt to contact the stationmaster after the train had left Larissa.”
He went on to point out that editing has been done on the audio that has been made public. “Here we have ‘editing’ on the audio that has been made public. The only one who has these audio recordings is, either the GSMR (Global System for Mobile Communications-Railway) that does the communication between station masters, or when the train leaves Larissa, it is the OSE (Hellenic Railways Organisation),” he pointed out.
Asked why he claimed that a significant part of the audio had been “cut off”, Mr. Yenedounias had replied: “To incriminate people, to say ‘it’s all our fault’.”
“Is it possible that 8 to 10 hours after the tragic accident there is a conversation between a stationmaster and a train driver, which is the subject of a preliminary investigation, on YouTube?” said Mr. Genidounias.
“I was not invited to the inquiry by the New Democracy majority because they knew very well what I would say. Everyone has realized now,” was Mr. Yenidounia’s sharp response to the propaganda of D. Tsiodra, who, speaking to ANT1, claimed that the former was not called to the parliamentary inquiry because he was a member of SYRIZA.
“The director of the Prime Minister’s Press Office, Dimitris Tsiodras has not stopped spreading inaccuracies about the crime of Tempi. Of course, he forgets to mention how the cover-up of the crime is being orchestrated and how the New Democracy party has also “messed up” the parliamentary investigative committee by refusing to call key witnesses”, such as Mr. Genidounias.
Speaking to ANT1, he tried once again to mislead people by saying that “the committee ruled based on certain criteria”. It’s assumed that Mr. Genidounias because he is a political party member of Syriza was not eligible to testify. At another point, when it was mentioned by the panel that Mr. Genidounias, as president of the union of train drivers, had sent many outgoing letters warning about the danger of the railway, D. Tsiodras replied that “He was also a member of the Central Committee of SYRIZA, so he was speaking from a political point of view”.
