Spanish Train Driver, Safety Chief Convicted

A train driver and a former safety chief have been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for their roles in a train disaster in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, that resulted in 79 deaths and 143 injuries in July 2013. The court found that the driver, Francisco Garzon, was distracted by a phone call, and there was a lack of a safety system to enforce speed limits, leading to the derailment of the high-speed Alvia train. The judge, Elena Fernandez Curras, ruled that both men had breached their duties, resulting in an unlawful increase in risk. In addition to their prison sentences, they are required to pay €25 million ($27.14 million) in damages to the victims. The official death toll was revised down from 80 to 79 after determining one victim died from an unrelated illness weeks later. Despite the complexity and length of the judicial investigation, only these two defendants were prosecuted out of more than 20 individuals investigated.