CAIRO: The Misdemeanors Court will issue its final verdict in the trial of the latest Al-Ayyat train crash on Jan. 4, its judge said Monday. Eight railway workers are on trial, including two train conductors and three signalmen. They are facing charges of negligence and involuntary manslaughter. All eight suspects have been charged with causing the "death of 18 people due to negligence, a source said. The Prosecutor General is demanding the harshest sentence for the eight workers for involuntary manslaughter and has submitted evidence supporting the claim, while on the other hand, the defense committee has pleaded not guilty. The train crash, which claimed the lives of 18 people and injured 36, led to the resignation of Minister of Transportation Mohamed Lotfy Mansour. The defense committee has also requested that the court summon Mansour and the former head of the Egyptian Railway Authority, Mahmoud Sami, who also stepped down following the accident, to testify. "We hope this trial would set an example for others to be more alert and attentive while on duty because it's people's lives at stake, however we are not really solving anything whether it's by the minister and the head of the authority stepping down or by the workers being sent to jail, said MP Abdel Fattah Eid, member of the transportation committee at the People's Assembly. "The root of the problem is in the system itself and this is what needs to be changed and if another person comes and applies the same strategy accidents will continue to take place and the deterioration will continue therefore the government needs to work on solving that in order to prevent similar catastrophes on the long run, he explained. On Oct. 24, two trains collided near the village of Girzah, in the area of Al-Ayyat about 40 km south of Cairo, when one train hit a water buffalo which had wandered onto the tracks. The second train, heading from Cairo to Assiut, rear-ended it. The investigation carried out by the prosecutor's office determined that the conductor of the first train also waited 20 minutes before alerting rail authorities that he had made an unscheduled halt.
