Maputo — Those criminally responsible for Mozambique's worst ever rail disaster were negligent members of the train crew, and not the management of the rail company, CFM, much less Transport Minister Tomas Salomao, Attorney-General Joaquim Madeira argued on Wednesday.

The disaster took place on 25 May last year, when passenger carriages rolled down an incline and smashed into stationary goods wagons full of cement at Tenga station, on the line from Maputo to South Africa. 197 people died in the crash, and about 250 were injured.

The four members of the train crew, who had abandoned the passenger carriages on the hill, with only sticks and stones to act as brakes, were charged with manslaughter. But voices in the press, and in the main opposition party Renamo, were raised, demanding Salomao's resignation, and claiming that the CFM board of directors were "the real culprits".

Giving his annual report to the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, Madeira pointed out that "criminal responsibility is individual and falls only upon the agents of the crime".

"Since it was the crew who stopped the train on a slope, and used brakes improvised out of stones, knowing that the manual braking system wasn't working, it seems obvious that it is the crew that must respond for its actions, and nobody else", said Madeira.

The most that could be imputed to CFM was "civil responsibility", said Madeira (in other words the company could be ordered to pay compensation to the families of the victims, but could not be said to have committed a crime because of negligent behaviour of some of its employees). Madeira pointed out that the crew failed to observe "the most elementary safety measures, which are stipulated in the Train Circulation Regulations". That put the lives of hundreds of people at risk, and so it was quite correct that the four crew members were arrested and put on trial.

But the case had resulted in "a peculiar judicial incident".

Madeira was referring to the decision of the judge, in the Matola court where the case was held, that no crime had been committed.

The Public Prosecutor's office has appealed against this extraordinary ruling.

Madeira took the opportunity to note that Tenga was not an isolated incident, and that other train crews had displayed "irresponsible behaviour". Thus four people had died in a head-on collision between two goods trains in the northern province of Nampula, which could have been avoided had the crew of the westbound train obeyed instructions.

The crew was told to stop at Rapale station, to allow the eastbound train to pass - but instead the crew did not even slow down, and three kilometres out of Rapale the two trains collided.

Madeira described this as "a further case of flagrant irresponsibility".