On November 5, 2018, eight people died in Marseille in the collapse of two dilapidated buildings on rue d'Aubagne.
This Friday, the prosecution requested the referral to the criminal court of four people, two individuals, two legal entities, indicted
“for involuntary homicide and involuntary injuries”
.
“If the requisitions were to be followed
(by the three investigating judges responsible for this case)
, a pre-trial hearing could take place in the spring, for a possible opening of the trial this fall
,” explained Saturday to the AFP Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone.
Four people could therefore be judged for these eight missing lives, in a tragedy symptomatic of the scale of the issue of unsanitary housing in the second largest city in France, in its very heart, just a stone's throw from the Old Port and the the Canebière.
First two individuals: Julien Ruas, deputy mayor responsible for prevention and risk management, when the city was still led by Jean-Claude Gaudin (LR);
and Richard Carta, the architect appointed as an expert by the administrative court of Marseille, who had inspected the building at 65 rue d'Aubagne, where the eight victims lived on October 18, 2018, barely three weeks before the tragedy.
A visit that he had botched in an hour, without questioning any of the residents.
“Any notion of proactivity, responsibility and initiative in relation to his missions were completely foreign to him”
Michel Sastre, first deputy prosecutor of Marseille
And two legal entities: Marseille Habitat, a mixed economy company from the city of Marseille which owns 63 rue d'Aubagne, an empty but totally dilapidated building which collapsed at the same time as 65;
and the Liautard firm, the co-ownership trustee responsible for the management of 65. If, in his indictment, which AFP was able to consult on Saturday, the first vice-prosecutor Michel Sastre believes that
"no one could predict a collapse"
of the two buildings, the magistrate has very harsh words for those indicted.
Certainly,
“it was certain”
during Richard Carta's intervention that the collapses were
“inevitable”
, he believes, on the basis of the expert opinions included in the file.
But Richard Carta
“did not fulfill the minimum obligations of diligence of an expert”
, denounces the magistrate, evoking a
“routine drama”
.
As for Julien Ruas, he demonstrated during the investigation that
“any notion of proactivity, responsibility and initiative in relation to his missions were completely foreign to him”
.