Fallout continued on Tuesday a day after the most prominent family member of a Tempi rail disaster victim claimed she and her son were threatened for recently accusing the prime minister of “high treason”.

Maria Karystianou, whose daughter Marthi Psaropoulou, perished in the two-train collision on the evening of Feb. 28, 2023, made the allegations during an interview aired on the site in.gr. She also claimed that in her opinion Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was influencing the supreme court’s top prosecutor, who in turn was influencing the top investigative magistrate overseeing the investigation into the deadly Tempi collision.

Speaking to members of ruling New Democracy (ND) party’s hours before the Karystianou interview was aired, Mitsotakis referred to the unprecedented “high treason” charge aimed against him, avoiding a direct response to the former but taking umbrage with the opposition for what he called his rivals’ “desperation”.

“They went to the most extreme: accusing ministers and me, as Prime Minister, of what? Take note: of high treason. I repeat, high treason.”

The developments come ahead of a vote on Wednesday in Parliament to establish a preliminary committee of inquiry on the Tempi disaster.

“We are not going to be accomplices against Parliamentary order. On the contrary, armed with the truth, we will expose all those who tried to twist human mourning into a political desire…for those who exploit, in the most vulgar and vile manner a collective tragedy, which they’ve transformed into an alleged political plot”.
Mitsotakis also referred to veritable sideshow of populism, fake news and demagoguery, as he charged.

“They’ve referred to xylene, fuel smuggling, phantom train coaches, paving over (crime scenes). They even reached the point of linking deaths that had no relation with the (Tempi) case,” he said.

During the posted interview on Monday evening, Karystianou claimed that earlier this month she was contacted by two “judicial officials” whom she knew. During a meeting in a central Athens café, she maintained that the pair cited threats by an unnamed high-ranking police officer against her and her young adult son, who she said will work over the summer on an island.

She reported the alleged threats to police’s special crimes unit on June 10 in person, but declined to reveal the identity of the two people with which she met. She also did not provide any information on the alleged police officer who made the threats against her and her son.

Meanwhile, a report on the Mega Channel’s primetime newscast provided more details of Karystianou’s testimony at the special police unit, dubbed Greece’s “FBI”, with her statement given on June 10 and covering three pages.

She said she had met the two unnamed people on two previous occasions before again meeting them on June 9. The man in the meeting, according to Karystianou, claimed the unnamed police man referred to a “possible accident” involving her son during his summer vacation on an (also unnamed) island. In the interview, Karystianou said her son would be working on an island for the summer.

Police later viewed videotape of the cafe where the meeting took place, confirming its holding, and are now trying to identify the man and woman seen with Karystianou.