Six years after its sinking off Santorini, the trial of 13 people who are being prosecuted is begun in Piraeus and is expected to last three months. Authorities are charging the defendants with a series of charges for the accident, in which two people drowned.
Prosecutor Evi Salma charged the defendants with breaching the safety of sea transport, manslaughter through negligence, causing sea pollution and breaching international safety regulations. According to Salma, the Sea Diamond hit a reef off Santorini following a series of mistakes and oversights by the crew.
She said that the vessel was only 50 meters from the coast when the accident occurred but should have been at least 285 meters away. Salma said that the reef did not appear on sea charts but the collision could have been avoided if the ship’s sonar and one of its three radars had been working. More than 60 witnesses are to appear in this trial.
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