Three new videos reportedly showing the course of an ill-fated south-bound freight train shortly before it collided head-on with an oncoming passenger train – the Tempi rail disaster – have been handed over to judicial officials investigating the incident, nearly two years after the deadly tragedy.

According to reports, the time-stamped videos purportedly show the freight train travelling through a rail tunnel. Two locomotives are shown pulling three open and flat carriages, followed by other railcars (rail carriages) on top of which intermodal containers are being transported. The specific images do not show any type of tanker or visible transported cargo on the three railcars behind the locomotives. Judicial authorities, and specifically the chief investigating magistrate of the Larissa prosecutor’s office, which has been tasked with the primary investigation, must now assess and confirm the veracity of the footage.

The independent judicial investigation has already retained an Athens (Metsovion) Polytechnic expert and is cooperating with a new state entity, called the national organization for the investigation of air and rail accidents and transport security, to examine any related Tempi evidence.

One of the scenarios that has been widely circulated in the country over the past year or so, and which has come under intense media and public opinion scrutiny, is whether a “mushroom” explosion seen in a separate and seconds-long grainy video was caused by a flammable liquid or liquids ignited due to the crash. Trace elements of xylene, among others, reportedly detected in the debris of the collision later fueled speculation that the freight carried an undeclared quantity of solvents, ostensibly for use to adulterate fuels. The latter, a smuggling and clandestine refining process, is a nagging criminal practice in the country to cheat motorists at the gas pump.

Allegations of a cover-up by the center-right government, on the back of a haphazard salvage operation in the days after the crash and an initial slapdash investigation by low-ranking fire brigade and civil defense inspectors, were soon magnified and repeated by the political opposition. Additionally, anger and sadness over the unprecedented rail disaster remains unabated, as a good portion of the 57 victims were college students on the north-bound passenger train returning to their studies in Thessaloniki. Several major protests have occurred in the country over the Tempi crash and investigation.

The videos were turned over to judicial authorities by noted attorney Vassilis Kapernaros, who represents a security company contracted by the state-run Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE) to manage the surveillance system that records the movement of trains on the railroad lines and to provide overall security for the network.

Kapernaros claimed that the company, his client, digitally recovered the footage using its own means, with the material officially handed over on Wednesday to judicial authorities.

Asked the obvious and “burning” question, namely, why the videos in question had not been presented so far, Kapernaros is quoted by local media as claiming that the security company proceeded to scour all computers at its operations center using remote log downloading only last November. Hard drives and storage drives were searched to locate any material related to Tempi, and which had not been identified until then, he said.

“There are three videos that show the crossing point and the crossing time, from the Platamonas tunnel to the data control center of Rapsani to the Tempi tunnel, and from the Rapsani data control center to the Tempi tunnel at the escape exit – with a time stamp, hour, minutes and seconds. The videos show the entire freight train, all of the wagons,” he said.

The attorney added the video footage was turned over after the company received a subpoena from the investigating magistrate. “…the footage is clear and unambiguous even to the ordinary citizen and is part of the investigation case. Anyone who sees it will see the truth.”

Asked what he saw on the freight train, Kapernaros said: “…I saw sheet metal, I saw only saw sheet metal, nothing else.”