Fassouh Building Owners Acquitted of Charges

The Beirut accusatory body acquitted on Wednesday the owners of the Fassouh building that collapsed on January 15.

The body had approved Beirut Examining Magistrate Ghassan Owaidat’s decision to acquit Claude and Michel Saadeh of the charges against them.

The two owners have however been released on a LL40 million and 75 million bail.

Owaidat had issued two arrest warrants against the individuals on January 23.

Twenty-seven people were killed and 12 wounded in the building collapse that took place in Beirut’s Ashrafiyeh neighborhood.

The seven-storey building collapsed in less than a minute, therefore preventing the residents from escaping.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel had said that the building’s old age was among the factors that contributed to its collapse.

The incident had raised fears of the occurrence of similar ones given the abundance of old buildings in the country and people’s ignorance of proper construction safety rules.

Despite the outcry over the Fassouh building collapse, no official authority has been established in order to monitor similar cases to prevent the repeat of the disaster.