Eleven Egyptian state employees charged with negligence in a train fire which killed 361 people will go on trial on April 27th, judicial sources have told AFP.
Cairo has accused the men of "negligence, falsification, no respect for the law, and having committed errors which instigated the deaths of the 361 people," in a government report compiled by Egypt's Attorney General Magdi al-Dib.
It faulted an engineer and a train official for falsifying reports saying that the ill-fated train had been equipped with fire-fighting equipment.
The men will be tried in the province of Giza, near the capital city of Cairo.
On February 20th, seven overcrowded train cars caught fire on the southern line from Cairo to Aswan, burning passengers alive.
The disaster caused outrage amongst Egyptians at the government's perceived neglect of the train line used mostly by Egypt's lower classes.
Seven other officials from Egypt's rail authority and two officials from the civil defense ministry were blamed for not limiting the number of passengers aboard the train, put at an estimated 4,000 people, the report detailed.
Prosecutors said the state had found that portable cooking stoves had caused the fire.
Judicial sources had earlier told the News Agency that the trial would begin on April 10th, which turned out not to be the case. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
