Cypriot Tempi victim’s parents demand answers on freight train’s cargo

The parents of Cypriot student Kyprianos Papaioannou, who died in the 2023 Tempi train crash in Greece, testified on Tuesday at the trial of those accused over the disaster. The crash killed some 57 people near Tempi in central Greece on 28 February 2023, when a passenger train carrying students collided with a freight train. Two Cypriots died, Papaioannou, 23, a law student at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and Anastasia Adamidou, 24, from Paphos. The trial, which began on March 23 at the Court of Appeal in Larissa, has 36 defendants and is expected to run for up to three years, with more than 350 witnesses. Georgia Papaioannou testified on the 40th day, relaying to the court that her son was due to marry that August. She said his body was brought to her “naked” in a zip-lock bag with no respect, and that she dressed him “as a dead man” instead of as a groom. His father, Father Christodoulos Papaioannou, a priest, said his son chose the train over a plane to save money for the wedding. When he opened the coffin, he said, he found burns on the body and a chemical odour that took repeated washing with wine to remove. He asked the court to establish what cargo the freight train was carrying. That question remains disputed, as Greek officials initially blamed human error and said silicone cooling oil fed the fire. In 2025 the national accident investigation body found that what was officially carried could not account for the fireball. A court-appointed expert later said silicone oil can break down into flammable gases and found no evidence of other cargo. A technical adviser to the victims’ families, citing a state laboratory, has claimed hydrocarbons, such as benzene and xylene were on the train, which Hellenic Train has denied carrying. Xylene and similar solvents are much cheaper than petrol and are used to adulterate fuel. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis reversed an earlier denial in 2025 and said a suspicious cargo was indeed possible.