July 24, 2020
The Islamic Republic’s Inspector General has blamed the then-minister of transport for a deadly train crash in 2016 that killed 47 people, according to the Mehr news agency.
No official announcement has been made, but there has also
been no denial of the Mehr report since it was published November 27.
Originally, an accident investigation by the state agency that looks into such accidents blamed local staff of the national railways for allowing a train to proceed down a track where a stalled train was awaiting repair.
But now Mehr says the Inspector General, whose office does not usually deal with accidents, has blamed then-Transport Minister Abbas Akhoundi as the chief culprit by virtue of his role as head of the General Assembly of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways, Mehr said. Akhoundi left the cabinet in October 2018.
Nothing has yet been said about any criminal charges against the former minister.
As reported in 2016, a passenger express train traveling from Tabriz to Mashhad stopped because of technical problem associated with cold weather between Semnan and Damghan. A second express train, traveling from Semnan to Mashhad on the same track, was ordered to stop by the dispatcher, and the signals were turned red.
The dispatcher’s shift ended before the problem was resolved. When a new dispatcher came on duty, the second train asked for permission to resume its journey, which was approved by the new dispatcher. The second train gained full speed and hit the first train from behind. Four cars derailed and two of them caught fire. Forty-seven passengers and crew from both trains were killed and more than 100 injured.
Meanwhile, in what might not be unrelated news, the Fars news agency said Akhoundi’s son, Mehdi, had been arrested and charged with taking bribes from contractors to secure contracts from the Transport Ministry when his father was the minister. Mehdi’s arrest is the latest in the ongoing arrests involved in the corruption crackdown being led by Judiciary Chairman Ebrahim Raisi, which seems to find most corruption in the ranks of Reformists.