Croatia charges five over fatal train crash

The county attorney‘s office in the southern coastal town of Split charged the five, including two Croatian Railways employees.

ZAGREB, April 13, 2010 (AFP) - Croatia's prosecution on Tuesday filed charges against five men suspected of being responsible for a high-speed train crash in which six people, including a French woman and a Spanish man, died last July.

The county attorney's office in the southern coastal town of Split charged the five, including two Croatian Railways employees, with a "criminal act against public safety" due to which six people died and 55 were injured, many of them seriously.

In a statement prosecutors said the accused treated the train tracks with a fire-resistant substance that was known to increase slipperiness of the tracks causing the train to derail.

The tilting train was linking the capital Zagreb and Split, near which the accident has occurred on July 24, 2009.

The dead included four Croatians, a French woman and a Spanish man, while some dozen foreigners were among the injured.

It was the worst train accident in Croatia since 1974 when 152 people were killed near Zagreb's central railway station.