The Criminal Court number 2 of Santiago de Compostela has sentenced Francisco Garzón, the driver of the Alvia train that derailed on the Angrois curve on 24 July 2013, to two years and six months in prison, and before whom he was director of Adif Traffic Safety when the line was put into service, Andrés Cortabitarte, for 79 crimes of murder and 143 crimes of injury due to serious recklessness. When eleven years have passed since what happened, the sentence considers that the accident was due to the fact that no measures had been taken to limit the risks of using a safety system that left all responsibility to the driver, and also to his lack of attention. after receiving a call from the intervener.
The judge, Elena Fernández Currás, describes in a long sentence as 'incomprehensible' that no safety risk analysis was carried out after making a relevant change to the line project: it was designed as a high-speed connection, with one of the safest train protection systems that existed (ERTMS, with the possibility of automatically braking the train if the maximum speeds are exceeded), but later modified and some kilometres remained without that system. Instead, the ASFA was applied to the section where the train derailed, where the braking is in the hands of the driver.
The two convicted by the sentence, which can be appealed to the Provincial Court of A Coruña, are also banned from exercising their profession for four and a half years. The judge also orders the payment of compensation to the victims, with direct civil liability of the insurers Renfe and Adif (respectively QBE and Allianz Global), which amounts to more than 25 million euros. The charges called for a conviction for 80 acts of murder – although the victims count 81 – but the judge considers that the injuries sustained by one of the people in the accident were not the cause of his death, which occurred 73 days after the derailment as a result, he says, of a serious illness from which he was suffering. It maintains that the injuries caused him to get worse, so he is included among the injured and it is ordered that his relatives receive compensation.
The driver was sentenced for having a “lack of urgency” from the train conductor, who wanted to ask him a question about some passengers who would be getting off at Pontedeume more than an hour later. As a result, he “lost his position on the road and did not see some signs” which could have put him in an area near the Angrois bend, where he had to reduce his speed considerably. The judge considered that this was a “failure to take the most basic precautions of a professional to check where he was before answering the call or even to do so during the conversation.”