Three representatives of Lérida CDO construction company and two urban curators of Medellín will be charged for offences of manslaughter and officials by malfeasance by default for the collapse of an apartments tower last 12 of October 2013 in the residential Space, in Medellín (Antioquia).
The determination of the accusing entity sheltered Pablo Villegas Mesa, then legal representative of the firm Constructora Lleida CDO S.A., responsible for managing the work; Jorge Jesús Aristizábal Ochoa, structural engineer of the building Space project, which is co-ordinating the construction design; Maria Cecilia Posada Grisales, Director engineer who led the construction; Elin Francis Llanos, second curator of Medellin in the period 2005-2006, which granted licenses for stages 1, 2 and 3, and Carlos Alberto Ruiz Arango, curator second of Medellin in 2007, who granted licenses for stages 4, 5, 6 A and 6-B.
The Deputy Attorney General of Nation Jorge Fernando Perdomo, said that the two officials will be charged with the crime of malfeasance by default but five will be covered by the same determination for the alleged commission of the crime of manslaughter in homogeneous and subsequent competition. This means that there was violation of duties of care goals; ie was made without the full legal requirements.
After completing the technical inquiry, the experts from the Attorney General’s Office detected errors in different sectors of the work. “The Prosecutor’s Office could determine that there were flaws in design and construction. More than a thousand irregularities in beams, columns, elevators, among others.
In the first case, it was found that the work was designed with no regard for earthquake resistance standards issued in 1998 and 2002. This “leads to the conclusion that if it had been an earthquake, the building would not have endured,” said Perdomo. Similarly, there was a miscalculation on weight bearing. 22 floors were planned and were built 26.
Hearings will be conducted in Medellin and at this time it is assessing the possibility of request measure of assurance against these people, but we will have to take into account that the company has indemnified to almost all of the victims.
The Attorney General’s Office was appointed last October 14, 2013 a special team formed by two sectional attorneys and two support researchers to determine if there was criminal liability in the collapse of one of the towers of the Space urbanization.
Also, was created two days later a special technical committee of the Technical Investigation Corps (CTI) consists of 20 servers to perform research work on two fronts in order to establish the causes of the fall of the building and the responsibilities arising from the occurrence of the offenses of culpable homicide and personal injury.
The Commission carried out search of material evidence in the same scene, in the Office of planning of Medellín, on the Superintendency of industry and Commerce and the legal Office of the construction company.
Similarly, CTI experts collected samples in his time and sent the material of the collapsed structure to the tecnic-cientific laboratory at the National University of Colombia, where the analysis in accordance with the technical specifications of the work and the quality of the materials used were made.
The fall of the building Space took place in the city of Medellín (Antioquia) on October 12, 2013. By this fact, 12 people were died and others were injured.