The testimony of Nikolaos Zisis, a passenger on the fatal train in Tempi and husband of 34-year-old Athina Katsara, who lost her life in the collision.
“I realized the extent of the disaster when I went to the University Hospital and heard parents asking, ‘Could that be my child?’ I stayed there to get stitches. Those first few days in the hospital—no one would want to go through them—all I could see was smoke. I kept asking, ‘Why didn’t it take me instead, God?’ The curtain fell on Friday, March 3, when the psychologist and my sister told me that my wife had passed away. And I couldn’t even say goodbye to her,” emphasized the husband of Athina Katsara.
ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΑΡΘΡΑ
At another point in his testimony, he lashed out at the defendant’s defense attorney, RAS President Ioanna Tsiaparikou.
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“No child should ever have to go through what my son went through. I’d rather it were me who died and his mother lived. His mother is his mother. The other day, he wanted a photo of his mom to show his friends,” he emphasized.
“I want the knife to cut right to the bone. It’s a matter of moral satisfaction. I know that in 2023, two trains were on the same track. I want all of them to be punished—everyone named in the indictment, as well as the ministers, the secretaries, and the regional governor. “They should feel in their bones that they turned our homes into cemeteries,” he emphasized.
At the end of his testimony, he broke down in tears.
It should be noted that this followed testimony from the rest of Athena Katsara’s family.
Next to testify was Kanella Andreadou, the mother of Aphrodite Tsioma.
At the beginning of her testimony, she showed a photograph of her daughter to the accused former president of OSE, Spyros Pateras, saying, “You didn’t do your job properly. You should have protected these children.”
Regarding the defendants, she emphasized that “I believe they were carrying out the government’s orders.” At the same time, he stressed that the state “sent my child to her death and to this day is twisting the knife in the wound.”
“I visit her grave every day and pray that Aphrodite wasn’t burned, that she didn’t understand anything. And they send me a document saying she was burned alive. How did this massive fireball form? No investigation,” she said.
“All I have left of Aphrodite is a melted ring. Just like all her other belongings. The door to her room is always open. Every day I live for Aphrodite. There’s nothing else in my life. There’s only pain—that Aphrodite lost her life,” she noted.
She emphasized that she has complete confidence in justice, but expressed her hope that “the judicial system will rise to the occasion and punish them. “We must feel that justice has been served—that these people were murdered by an entire system, and those at the top knew exactly what they were doing.” Nikoletta Tsioma, Aphrodite’s sister, was the last to testify.
The trial will resume next Monday, October 5.
Source: In.gr
