The acquittal of 11 low-ranking railway employees charged with responsibility for Egypt's worst railway tragedy has been hailed as a triumph for justice, reports Gihan Shahine Click to view caption Giza's Criminal Court was the backdrop for extraordinary scenes on Sunday when Judge Saad Abdel- Wahed acquitted 11 low- and mid- ranking rail employees charged with negligence leading to the deaths of 373 people and the injury of another 66 in the 20 February Aswan-bound train disaster. The release of the defendants -- ticket collectors, train masters, supervisors and mechanical engineers -- drew applause from those in attendance as shouts of Allahu Akbar (God is Great) shook the courtroom. The hubbub only ceased when Abdel-Wahed threatened to adjourn the court. The defendants, the judge concluded, had been no more than scapegoats, and though the precise causes of the tragedy remain unclear, Abdel-Wahed stated his belief that negligence and inefficiency at the highest levels of the Railway Authority and Traffic and Transport Police (TTP) daily place the lives of five million commuters at risk. The TTP, he added, regularly allows unacceptable overcrowding on third class trains. His verdict, said the judge, should sound a warning bell to all those "who tamper with the fate of citizens". "Judges are fed-up that whenever an accident occurs it is minor employees who are brought for trial while their superiors are left free to continue cashing thousands of pounds," Abdel-Wahed concluded. "Egypt still has fair and just judiciary," thundered lawyer Tharwat Amer. "This ruling is historic," insisted Hafez Abu Se'da, secretary- general of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR). "The ruling serves to reinforce the public's perception of the judiciary as a safe haven for justice," said Fawziya Abdel-Sattar, former head of the legislative committee at the People's Assembly. That the judge's comments should have fingered high-ranking officials and included the suggestion that they were partly to blame for appointing incompetent managers to senior positions, appeared to reflect widely held opinions. "The verdict was a reflection of public sentiments, as was the refusal to punish scapegoats," said Abu Se'da. Lawyer Ahmed El-Naggar -- one of 12 who volunteered to defend the 11 minor employees -- praised the verdict as the result of the court's "relentless efforts in search for truth". The court, El-Naggar said, had summoned a vast number of witnesses, including the former minister of transport, had carried out its own thorough on-site investigations and had then compared the results with the findings of the technical committee assigned by the general prosecutor's office to investigate the accident. "It was thanks to such sustained efforts," El- Naggar said, "that the court was able to uncover the inaccuracies in the committee's own report ." The technical committee's claim that the blaze had been caused by an "open source of fire, probably kerosene stoves" was discounted by the court, which concluded that the committee had depended on circumstantial observation rather than scientific analysis and that judgments cannot be made on the basis of probability. "The cause of the blaze still remains unclear and as a consequence there was no proof with which to indict the defendants," concluded El-Naggar. Outside the courtroom there was little interest in the legal intricacies of the case, only excitement at the reaching of a verdict considered "brave and unbiased". "It was amazing how the judge criticised the government and refused to punish poor employees for the sake of powerful, highly- paid officials," said engineer Salah Abdel-Fattah, who had watched the verdict on TV news. "It was something I never expected." Nor had the defendants in the cage dock. "What can we, minor employees, do when the authority does not even provide extinguishers," asked Ahmed Ibrahim, one of the defendants. "We work under the worst conditions." The verdict leaves many questions in its wake, not least why higher ranking officials at the Railway Authority and the TTP had not been charged earlier. It took until September for them to be referred for investigation, and even then to the Supreme Disciplinary, not a criminal, court. "The judiciary can only summon people to trial at the request of the prosecutor's office," El- Naggar explained. "And it is clear that, given the failure of the technical committee to confirm the real cause of the blaze, that the general prosecutor should further investigate the case. It is the lack of clarity over the cause of the fire that makes it impossible to allocate responsibility." In the meantime 20 senior railway officials, including Ahmed Maher Mustafa and Ahmed Sherif El-Sheikh, both former chairmen of the Railway Authority, and Roshd Mahmoud El-Khatib, a deputy chairman for financial affairs, are being investigated by the Supreme Disciplinary Court. The defendants face charges of negligence resulting in the 20 February disaster as well as responsibility for other fatal accidents. The authority's former chairman and deputy chairman are also charged with misusing LE61 million in revenues to distribute in bonuses rather than upgrading third-class trains. LE1.76 million of this went on bonuses for the TTP. Should the defendants be found guilty of misconduct they face dismissal and the loss of pension privileges. Related stories: Passing the buck 30 May - 5 June 2002 Paying for poverty? 2 - 8 May 2002 Back on track? 14 - 20 March 2002 Insuring against catastrophe 7 - 13 March 2002 Tragedy in the making 28 Feb. - 6 March 2002 No faces, only horror 28 Feb. - 6 March 2002 One way ticket 28 Feb. - 6 March 2002
