Last update - 00:00 05/02/2007
Police urge indictment of Israel Railways head for fatal crash
By Roni Singer-Heruti, Haaretz Correspondent
Police on Monday recommended that the director general of Israel Railways, Ofer Linczewski, be indicted for his role in a train collision near Beit Yehoshua in June that killed five and injured dozens.
Police recommend that Linczewski be charged with causing death by negligence.
The accident took place when a Tel Aviv-Haifa passenger train collided with a pickup truck stuck on the tracks near Beit Yehoshua, south of Netanya.
Police are due to recommend that the truck driver, Yonatan Vadya, also be indicted for his role in the accident. He was found to have been under the influence of drugs at the time of the collision. He escaped from the crash unharmed.
A prosecutor has been keeping tabs on the months-long police investigation, over the course of which dozens of witnesses have been questioned.
Investigators have recently begun summarizing the findings of the inquiry, which has unearthed many flaws in the Israel Railways safety procedures.
Less than two hours before the accident, an Israel Railways lookout left the crash site due to light train activity at that time of day, the railway has said. The site is one of Israel Railways' most active areas, with 300 trains passing through daily.
At first, police suspected that Linczewski had only indirect responsibility for the accident, and sought to discover his role in setting Israel Railways' safety policies.
Linczewski told police that the procedures were in place long before he became director general, and investigators attempted to find out which regulations he may have altered and whether he knew about existing flaws but failed to do anything to fix them.
By the later stages of the investigation, the police and prosecution found that there were many safety flaws at Israel Railways that contributed to the Beit Yehoshua crash, and that Linczewski and other senior railway officials did not do enough to prevent the accident.
Police were surprised to hear that Linczewski would be speaking about train safety in Israel at a transit conference taking place Wednesday, calling this a cynical move meant to present his own defense in light of a possible trial.