MADRID—The trial of a Spanish train driver and a former head of traffic safety at national rail-infrastructure operator Adif over a train disaster that killed 80 people in the summer of 2013 kicked off on Wednesday, with a protester punching one of the defendants in a scuffle outside the courtroom.
In the country’s worst rail accident in decades, another 145 people were injured when the eight-carriage, high-speed Alvia 04155 train veered off the track on a sharp bend near the northernwestern Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela, slamming into a concrete wall and bursting into flames.
The Rail Accident Investigation Commission, which is under the Transport Ministry, concluded in a report that the accident was caused by speeding and the driver, Francisco Jose Garzon, being distracted by a call from a superior….