Police detain Spain train crash driver

SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA—Spanish police said on Friday they had detained the driver of a speeding train that hurtled off the tracks in the nation’s deadliest rail disaster in decades, accusing him of criminal recklessness.

The country was in mourning over Wednesday’s tragedy, which police said had killed 78 people, including several foreigners, and injured more than 100.

The 52-year-old driver faces criminal accusations including “recklessness” over the crash near the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela, said Jaime Iglesias, police chief in the northwestern Galicia region.

The train was said to have been traveling at more than twice the speed limit when it hurtled off the rails and slammed into a concrete wall. The gray-haired driver, who reportedly boasted of his love for speed online, was detained on Thursday in hospital where he had been under police surveillance, Iglesias told a news conference.

A Spanish judge had ordered police to question the man, identified as Francisco Jose Garzon Amo in local media which published photographs of him after the crash with blood covering the right side of his face.

He has not been charged with a crime because he is still being treated for unspecified injuries suffered in the crash.

However a police spokesperson later told AFP that Garzon had refused to respond to police questioning on Friday and that the case would now be passed to the courts.

Leading Spanish newspaper El Pais said the driver of the train—which was carrying over 200 passengers and crew—had been unable to brake in time.

Seventy-eight passengers perished, five of whom have yet to be identified. A memorial service for the victims will be held at Santiago de Compostela’s cathedral on Monday night, a spokesperson for the local archdiocese told AFP.