The bench presided over by Judge Abdulla al-Emadi delivering the verdict yesterday after 14 trial sessions.

 

Five people were sentenced to jail terms by a Doha court in the Villaggio mall fire case yesterday, some one year after the deadly blaze claimed 19 lives, including 13 children.

While four of the accused including Sheikh Ali bin Jassim al-Thani and his wife Iman al-Kuwari, both  co-owners of the Gympanzee daycare centre, received six-year jail terms,  the fifth was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of negligence.

Two other defendants, including the mall’s assistant manager and head of security, were cleared of all charges.

The defendants who were sentenced to six years in prison, the maximum allowable for the charge, are:  Sheikh Ali bin Jassim al- Thani,  Iman al-Kuwari,  Abdul Aziz Mohamed al-Rabban, Villaggio’s chairman and Tzoulios Tzouliou, manager of Villaggio.

Mansour Nasir Fazzaa al-Shahwani from the Ministry of Business and Trade, who was responsible for giving Gympanzee its licence, has been sentenced to five years.

Sheikh Ali bin Jassim al-Thani  is also currently Qatar’s Ambassador to Belgium, while Iman al-Kuwari is the daughter of Qatar’s culture minister.

All five are currently out on appeal, and will remain out of custody until the appeals process is completed.

Court officials told Al Jazeera the appeal process was expected to last between eight and 12 months.

A judge has also deemed that the standard “blood-money” of QR200,000 per victim be applied as part of the verdict. “This will be paid by Villaggio’s insurance companies to the families of the victims,” news portal Doha News said.

“During the trial, the lawyer for the families also asked for a $13.7mn (QR50mn) payout for material and emotional damages experienced by each inheritor of the victim, and a $15.1mn (QR55mn) payout per inheritor as compensation for the pain and suffering experienced by the deceased. These further requests for compensation will be decided by Qatar’s Civil Court,” Doha News added.

The judge has referred the case to the country’s civil court so that financial compensation can be decided upon.

Among the victims of the tragedy that struck Doha on May 28, 2012 were 13 children, who were wards of the Gympanzee daycare, four teachers and two firefighters. All the 19 people killed in the blaze were foreigners.

According to sources, the families of the victims who were present in the court, expressed a sense of “of elation and relief” after hearing the verdict. “They believe that justice has been served [...] and the right people have been found guilty,” Al Jazeera’s Merena Hond quoted some of them as saying.

Among the children who died were triplets from New Zealand and two Spanish siblings.

Investigators had said last year that the fire that broke out next to the  Gympanzee daycare was caused by an electrical fault in a nearby store run by Nike.

HH the  Heir Apparent Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani had personally conveyed condolences of HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani as well as  his own respects to the families of victims.

HE the Chairman of the Administrative Control and Transparency Authority, Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, had briefed the victims’ families of the findings of the ad hoc committee that was set up to investigate the mall fire. HE al-Attiyah was the head of the committee set up on the orders of HH the Emir to probe the blaze, which resulted in the government issuing stern orders to review the safety of all the buildings and others structures in the country.

Following the fire, prominent Islamic scholar Sheikh Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi had called for bringing to book “those responsible for the  tragedy in a just and satisfactory manner”.  

 

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