A Doha criminal court has adjourned the hearing in the Hala Istanbul restaurant explosion case until October, local daily Arrayah reported yesterday.
The court will hear witnesses from Woqod in October.
The court has also decided to ask Ooredoo to confirm if there were any phone calls between two of the accused in the case, the report states. This was based on a request by the defence of the second accused as he had shown that there were phone calls between the parties concerned, though Woqod had denied any such calls.
Besides, the remaining of the injured people will be legally notified to produce certificates with the percentage of disability they sustained during the incident to claim their due rights.
Eleven expatriates were killed and 35 others injured, including a Qatari, in the Duhail gas explosion on
February 27.
Four men are on trial for the incident, a foreman for Woqod, a superviser for QGG and two restaurant
employees.
All the accused and their defence attended the court session on Thursday, in addition to some witnesses and the injured persons. The court heard the testimony of two witnesses working for Qatar Gas Group (QGG).
The first witness, a project manager, testified that QGG was only responsible for installing and maintaining gas supply lines to the restaurant according to the standards and specifications of Woqod, indicating that the Ministry of Environment had no relation with this issue.
In response to a question from the defence of the second accused, the project manager answered: “We undertake maintenance at the restaurant and instal the gas line, which is used at the restaurant based on the requirements of Woqod. Contacts on the issue started with the client company on April 29, 2013. QGG then sent a price proposal to the restaurant. After the agreement, we started work in November 2013 and finished it on
December 14.
“However, Woqod made some remarks on the installations and accordingly QGG accomplished work on January 14, 2014, and we sent a correspondence to Woqod on January 15 to perform checks once more. Yet, this never took place till date.”
He added that QGG was responsible for making all the connections except those that connected ovens and internal stopcock. However, QGG did not put the required hose and gas regulator in place as these were not available at the time and were provided only by
approved companies.
The second witness, a project engineer at QGG, gave a similar testimony in court.
