BENGHAZI: A Libyan court has jailed 12 officials in connection with the collapse of a series of dams in Derna last year that killed thousands of city residents, the justice minister said on Sunday.
Officials in charge of managing the country's dams were sentenced to prison terms ranging from nine to 27 years by the Derna Appeal Court. Four officials were acquitted.
Derna, a coastal city of 125,000 people, was devastated by massive flooding caused by Storm Daniel in September.
The floods caused dams to fail, buildings to collapse, and entire neighborhoods to be destroyed, killing thousands and leaving thousands more missing.
Tripoli's prosecutor general ordered the three defendants to “return the money they obtained as illicit gains,” according to a statement, which did not name or title those who appeared in court.
“The convicted officials are charged with negligence, wilful homicide and waste of public funds,” a judicial source in Derna told Reuters by telephone, adding that they have the right to appeal the verdict.
The deadly flash floods in Derna were a climate and environmental catastrophe that required $1.8 billion for reconstruction and recovery, according to a report released in January by the World Bank, the United Nations and the European Union.
The report said the dam's failure was partly due to its design based on outdated hydrological information, and partly due to poor maintenance and governance during more than a decade of conflict in Libya.
Libya has been divided into rival factions ruling the east and west since 2014, following the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ousted Muammar Gaddafi.
