ATHENS, March 28, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Greece's conservative government faces a
censure motion in parliament on Thursday over claims it had sought to
manipulate an ongoing investigation into the nation's worst train tragedy.

After a three-day debate, the no-confidence motion will be put to an evening
vote that the government majority is expected to win.

The motion lodged by the socialist PASOK party on Tuesday came after a
newspaper report claimed that a key sound recording from the night of the
accident, extensively played by media at the time, had been misleadingly
edited.

Opposition parties have accused the government of being behind the alleged
subterfuge, as part of efforts to reinforce its chosen narrative that human
error was to blame for the collision that claimed 57 lives in February 2023.

"Public opinion has reached an irrevocable conclusion -- that you are geared
towards a cover-up" of the train tragedy, Nikos Pappas, parliament speaker
for the main opposition Syriza party, told the chamber Wednesday.

"You are summoned to give answers," he said.

Opposition parties say the government handed out the spliced recording to
friendly media.

- 'Hide the truth' -

"In every scandal, in every deed that goes unpunished, your political choice
is to hide the truth," PASOK leader Nikos Androulakis told the government
while submitting the censure motion.

The disaster struck when a freight train and a passenger train with 350 staff
and passengers, mostly students, collided near a tunnel outside the central
city of Larissa shortly before midnight.

A year after the accident, relatives of the victims say that despite
government promises of a full investigation, state authorities wasted time
and overlooked vital evidence.

Experts appointed by relatives' families say the accident site was cleaned of
wreckage and topsoil before investigators could fully examine it.

The body of a young woman travelling on the passenger train still remains
unaccounted for.

Experts for the families have also claimed that the freight train was
carrying undeclared chemicals that caused a huge explosion after the crash,
killing people who might otherwise have survived.

A Metron Analysis opinion poll last week found that almost nine in 10 Greeks
thought little progress has been made in the investigation.

On Sunday, the To Vima weekly reported that leaked recordings of train staff
on the night of the accident, had been edited to suggest human error was
exclusively to blame.

In particular, one clip that saw extensive use at the time had the station
master giving the go-ahead to an unnamed train driver.

To Vima on Sunday reported that the discussion was with a driver on an
earlier train not involved in the accident, but his name was purposely
removed to create the impression that it was with the driver on one of the
trains that collided.

Who carried out the alleged manipulation is unclear, but To Vima suggested
that unauthorised persons had improperly acquired access to material that
should have been limited to investigators.

- Pressure on PM -

Critics point to an address to the nation by Prime Minister Kyriakos
Mitsotakis just hours after the accident, in which he said that "everything"
showed human error was to blame.

The government has reacted with fury, calling opposition parties "grave
robbers" aiming to "destabilise" the country.

Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis called the To Vima report "baseless"
and a "stain" on the newspaper's history.

Main opposition party Syriza has called on Mitsotakis, who was comfortably
re-elected in June, to resign.

The government, which has 158 lawmakers in the 300-seat parliament, welcomed
the no-confidence vote.

Opposition parties were already furious this past week after a four-month
parliamentary investigation into the accident concluded without assigning
blame to senior politicians.

Over 30 railway employees and officials face charges over the February 28,
2023 disaster, with a trial expected to start in June.

Greece's 2,552-kilometre (1,586-mile) rail network has for decades been
plagued by mismanagement, poor maintenance and obsolete equipment.

The government last year shrugged off another censure motion over a wiretap
scandal implicating state intelligence and the prime minister's office.