Ahmad 
A Libyan court in Derna has sentenced 12 officials to prison terms ranging from 9 to 27 years, after convicting them on charges of negligence, premeditated murder and squandering public funds, following the collapse of the city’s dams last year, which killed 4,540 people.
The court charged the convicted officials with negligence, premeditated murder and squandering public funds, and explained that the convicts, who supervised the management of the dam facilities, can appeal the rulings issued against them. In contrast, the court acquitted four other officials.
The public prosecutor in Tripoli announced that the rulings came after extensive investigations into the disaster that hit the coastal city, which has a population of 125,000, as a result of Hurricane Daniel last September.
The judicial source in Derna confirmed that three of the defendants are obligated to return the money they obtained from illicit gains, and the statement did not reveal the names of the defendants or their positions.
A joint report by the World Bank, the United Nations and the European Union in January said the devastating floods in Derna were a climate and environmental disaster that would require $1.8 billion in reconstruction and recovery funding.
The report said the dam collapses were the result of multiple factors, including their design based on outdated hydrological information, as well as maintenance and governance issues during more than a decade of conflict in Libya.
Libya has been divided since 2014 between rival power centers in the east and west, following the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011, further complicating the situation and negatively impacting the country’s infrastructure and governance.
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