The opposition had put forward the vote after a report in the To Vima newspaper alleged an audio file, which was leaked to the media in the hours following the head-on collision between the two trains, had been doctored to make it appear the accident was caused by human error rather than by Greece’s aging rail network.
Ahead of the parliamentary vote Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis dismissed the report as “misleading,” arguing the full transcripts had been “available to the judicial authorities from the beginning.”
“You are saying that my concern and thought was to tamper with these dialogues. Aren’t you ashamed to say so?” he asked. “It is legitimate for business people and publishers to want to influence politics. Let them get into the arena themselves and not by proxy.”
Earlier in the day, two top Mitsotakis aides — Minister of State Stavros Papastavrou and Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister Yiannis Bratakos — resigned after allegedly spending a night at the house of media mogul and shipowner Evangelos Marinakis, who also owns To Vima. The gathering took place a day after the paper published its damning story.
The Greek government has confirmed the meeting occurred, although Bratakos and Papastavrou have yet to comment. State Minister Makis Voridis dismissed the event as a mere social gathering.
Greek news website iEidiseis, describing the gathering, said “the whiskey flowed abundantly and was interrupted only for smoking the luxurious cigars,” adding: “The ‘stern messages’ turned into plenty of wine, cigars and whiskey.”