Overview
- Magistrate Elena Fernández Currás issued a written report dated 7 September recommending a full pardon or, subsidiarily, a pardon of the portion of the sentence that exceeds two years so the remaining term could be suspended.
- The driver, Francisco Garzón Amo, was convicted in 2023 of 79 counts of homicide and 143 counts of injury for serious negligence and sentenced to two years and six months in prison.
- The judge says the criminal act was a short lapse in which the driver held a phone conversation while approaching the A Grandeira (Angrois) curve and that the crash’s severity also reflected deficient signaling and missing technical protections on that track segment.
- Fernández Currás highlights mitigating facts including the driver’s lack of prior convictions, his retirement, largely insurer-paid civil damages by QBE on behalf of RENFE, and that most victims who submitted views supported clemency while noting a lasting moral condemnation.
- The report and other files have been sent to the Ministry of Justice and the Government must now grant, partially grant, or deny the indulto, a decision that will determine whether the sentence is erased, suspended, or carried out and could sharpen public debate over individual blame and infrastructure responsibility.