Vasso Koulpa, the mother of Anastasios Koutsopoulos, described in her testimony at the trial for the Tempe disaster how she said goodbye to her son before he boarded the train. She mentioned that he was initially scheduled to leave the next day and that he had shown her his new mobile phone, which, as he told her, could be used to call in case of an accident. Koulpa said that at 11:05, Tasos informed her by phone that the train was delayed and that he was in Larissa. Later, when he did not answer her calls, her husband speculated that there might not have been a signal along the route. At 12:15, as she reported, her son George informed her that the train had derailed. The family set off for Larissa, and upon arriving at the scene, she was searching for Tasos among the injured and the people who were crying. At the hospital, according to her testimony, she saw a stretcher being taken down from an ambulance that carried a bag with a dead body, and she tried to determine if the body was her son’s. Later, she told the investigating judge that she did not know what exactly she had received, describing how her child had been burned. She claimed that Tasos had survived the collision and could have been saved if the fire had not broken out. Koulpa stated that she wanted to know the truth and requested that the investigation and justice not be influenced by political considerations. She also said that she did not accept human error as an explanation and called for all evidence to be examined. #Δικαιοσύνη #Τέμπη #Αλήθεια (translated)
