Katowice Trade Hall Roof Collapse - Indictment and Trial

Indictment and Trial

The investigation was formally completed at the end of June 2008. The public prosecutor of the Katowice District Public Prosecutor’s Office decided to indict 12 persons. These include the designers of the hall, Jacek J. and Szczepan K., who on conviction for “directly endangering lives of other people” face up to 12 years of prison, two members of the board, Bruce Robinson and Ryszard Ziółek, and 7 other people, who on conviction for gross negligence face up to 8 years in jail, and the Chorzów County building inspector who faces lesser charges. The indictment was filed with the court on 18 July.

The experts determined that the main reason for the catastrophe was incorrect project. It was changed in order to make the construction cheaper. E-mails recovered from seized computers prove that members of the Board of Directors were fully aware of the problems and of an expert’s recommendation that snow be removed from the roof and that the project is verified. One of the indicted, technical coordinator Piotr I., is charged with failing to order the evacuation doors to be opened; he is the only one that pleaded guilty. In the course of investigation it was found that none of the victims died because of locked evacuation doors.

Postmortems carried out on victims have shown that none of them died because to exposure; all died because of injuries sustained because of the collapse of the roof.