Israel Railways officials charged over fatal train crash

The state prosecutor for the central region on Wednesday brought charges against senior officials in the Israel Railways over a 2006 accident, in which five people were killed and another 80 injured.

Former CEO Ofer Linchevski is charged with criminally negligent manslaughter, as are two other senior officials.

In June 2006, a train hit a car which had been left on the line near Beit Yehoshua in the Sharon region. The train had been on its way from Tel Aviv to Haifa and then Acre when the accident occurred.

The investigation into the incident showed that the driver of the vehicle had been involved in a collision with another car and had been forced onto the train tracks, where it became trapped.

The driver of the car involved in the accident was also charged in connection to the deaths.

Most of the people killed in the accident had been in a carriage which was crushed by a second carriage.

The police investigation into the accident was the most intricate investigation the police had ever done regarding a traffic accident.

Three investigative committees have examined the accident and tried to determine how much time passed in between when Israel Railways was notified about the car stuck on the train tracks and when the accident occurred.