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 the city's residents, the attorney general said on Sunday.
The officials, who were responsible for the management of the country's dams, were sentenced by the Derna Court of Appeal to sentences ranging from 9 to 27 years in prison. Four officials were acquitted.
Derna, a coastal city with a population of 125,000, was devastated last September by massive flooding from Storm Daniel.
Thousands of people died and thousands more went missing as floods broke dams, swept away buildings and destroyed entire neighborhoods.
Tripoli's general prosecutor said three of the defendants had been ordered to “return the money obtained from ill-gotten gains,” according to a statement, which did not give the names or positions of those on trial.
“The convicted officials were charged with negligence, premeditated murder and waste of public money,” a Derna judicial source told Reuters, adding that they have the right to appeal the verdicts.
A January report by the World Bank, the United Nations and the European Union said the deadly floods in Derna constituted a climate and environmental catastrophe that required $1.8 billion in reconstruction and recovery funding.
The report says the collapse of the dams was partly due to their design, based on outdated hydrological information, and partly the result of maintenance problems and poor governance during Libya's more than a decade of conflict.
Libya has been divided since 2014 between rival power centers that rule in the east and west, following the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.
