" I've lost five lives, I only think about those guys ."
Antonio Massa , 49, does not rest: he is the RFI employee at the construction site where the five workers overwhelmed and killed by the train in Brandizzo worked, he is registered in the register of suspects. According to the Ivrea Public Prosecutor's Office, which has opened a file for culpable railway disaster and multiple manslaughter, he should have prevented the workers from starting the construction site while waiting for the passage of the train that overwhelmed them .
" I thought that train had already passed, I was practically certain of it ," he told prosecutor Gabriella Viglione during interrogation. “Did you see it or thought it?” the prosecutor asked her. "I haven't seen it directly," is his reply. The man confirmed that he was the one who verbally anticipated the permission to open the construction site to the Sigifer workers.
The other suspect is Andrea Girardin Gibin, foreman of Sigifer and colleague of the victims , who survived the massacre because he saw the train's headlights just in time to move to the other track.
" Serious violations of the safety procedure emerged at the time of the accident ," explained the chief prosecutor of Ivrea, Gabriella Viglion e. So serious that, although the file has been opened for disaster and manslaughter, the investigators do not rule out hypothesizing possible fraud.
« There would have been no authorization to work on the tracks at the time the train passed », adds the prosecutor, who then focuses on the regulations in force: « We are also working to verify if the overall procedure can be considered safe. What happened made it clear that the guarantee mechanism was not sufficient to protect such a delicate job in a dangerous location such as that of the railway tracks".
The traffic light on track 1, in fact, was regularly green at the entrance to the Brandizzo station and the drivers of the train in transit, with no passengers, very probably a few minutes late according to the scheduled timetable, were not notified of the presence of the workers on the tracks. They are Marcello Pugliese, 52, and Francesco Gioffrè, 29 , both from Turin, heard in Ivrea as people informed about the facts, Giulia Nicodemi and Valentina Bossi reiterated their version to the prosecutors. At the moment, no profiles of responsibility have emerged regarding their position.
Furthermore, according to the reconstruction carried out by the prosecutor, the workers had already been there for a few minutes and were already unbolting the tracks when the train arrived: «There was a risk of an even more serious situation, because if the train had passed after the tracks had been removed , foreseen during the maintenance works, would have derailed », confirmed the prosecutor Viglione.
(Unioneonline/L)