“Justice will only be done if all six defendants are convicted”, says prosecutor
Seven years after the horrific (but inevitable) collapse of a municipal road between two quarries that claimed the lives of five people, final arguments have begun in Évora court.
Public prosecutors are asking for the conviction of all six defendants charged with 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.
In today’s session, public prosecutor Patrícia Azevedo also stressed that the defendants knew that quarry company ALA de Almeida Lda was working “contrary” to the law, in “manifestly illegal conditions” – namely with a quarry plan that dated back to 1993, when one drawn up in 2015 was not approved.
As to the mayor of Borba and his vice, António Anselmo and Joaquim Espanhol, they were not only aware of these situations, they showed incompetence (at best) potentially even disinterest. Azevedo described them as “pushing off (a decision) with their bellies” (a Portuguese expression for leaving something to another day).
There were alternatives that could have prevented this tragedy, Azevedo told the court, but the mayor and his vice did not take them.
The defendants
Still mayor of Borba, António Anselmo is charged with five offences of murder by omission, while Joaquim Espanhol is on trial for three.
Officials from the Directorate-General for Energy and Geology (DGEG) Bernardino Piteira and José Pereira are charged with two counts of murder by omission, while the company ALA de Almeida Limitada, whose manager has died in the intervening years, plus the firm’s technical manager, Paulo Alves, are charged with 10 counts of violating safety rules.
According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, inspection and licensing bodies “turned a blind eye to the quarry’s repeated non-compliance”, showing negligence – and defendants Bernardino Piteira and José Pereira, by allowing the quarry to operate, failed to safeguard people’s safety and lives.
Referring to testimonies from workers during the 20 or so sessions of the trial, the prosecutor argued that it has been proven that there was no signposting in the quarry; that the company’s employees were not properly trained and that they were unaware of safety procedures and/ or rules.
What actually happened
On the afternoon of 19 November 2018, a 100-metre stretch of the EM 255, between Borba and Vila Viçosa, collapsed due to a large volume of rocks, marble blocks and earth sliding into two quarries (one ‘active’, the other disused).
The photographs from the accident show how terrifyingly precarious the EM255 will have been, for years. President Marcelo even remarked after the accident that he had been driven along the road himself, to an official engagement.
The collapse caused the death of two workers in the quarry that was active, and three men who were travelling in two vehicles along the section of road that collapsed sending their cars tumbling into the deep water of a quarry pool.
The families of the deceased have already been ‘compensated’ by the State to the tune of around €1.6 million. ND
Source material: SIC / Lusa
