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Cameroon's French-linked rail operator, Camrail, and its top executives have been convicted of involuntary manslaughter after 79 people were killed and about 600 others were injured when a train derailed in October 2016.
A lawyer for one of the victims welcomed the ruling, handed down by a court in Cameroon's central town of Eséka.
"It's a historic day after a time of tears. Now is the time to hope," Me Massi Ngakele was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.
The train was travelling from the capital, Yaoundé, to the main commercial city, Douala, when it derailed on 21 October 2016, in one of the worst rail disasters in Cameroon.
Last year, a Cameroonian government inquiry found that the Camrail-operated train was travelling at more than twice the speed limit, its breaks were defective and it was overloaded.
Camrail is a unit of French industrial group Bolloré.
