“Justice will only be done if all six defendants are convicted” – prosecutor
This Friday, Évora Court acquitted the six defendants in the case of the collapse of the Municipal Road (EM) 255, between Borba and Vila Viçosa, into quarries, which caused five deaths.
In final arguments last month, public prosecutors said that “justice will only be done if all six defendants are convicted” – thus it is very possible today’s verdict will be ‘appealed’ to a higher court.
The case against the mayor of Borba, António Anselmo, the vice-mayor, Joaquim Espanhol, employees of the Directorate-General for Energy and Geology (DGEG) Bernardino Piteira and José Pereira, the company that operated the quarry and its technical manager, was that they were all guilty of homicide by omission, and violation of safety rules, because “they all knew’ about the “serious danger” of the EM255, but abjectly failed to safeguard the public interest.
It was over six years ago (on November 19, 2018) that a 100-metre stretch of the EM 255 collapsed due to a large volume of rocks, marble blocks and earth sliding into two quarries.
The accident caused the death of two workers from a marble extraction company in the quarry that was ‘active’ and three other men, occupants of two vehicles that were following the section of collapsed road and fell into the water plane of the quarry that was not active.
The families of the deceased have already been ‘compensated’ by the State to the tune of around €1.6 million.
