Following a gas leak in the southern port city of Aqaba, Jordanian police on Thursday charged eight people with a number of offences, primarily acts that resulted in death and damage to other people's property, according to state news agency Petra.
In addition to the 135 other testimonies heard earlier
in the investigation, the Public Prosecution Office of the Kingdom continued
its investigative procedures into the chlorine gas leak case and heard
testimony from 25 witnesses who were present at the landing port.
On June 27, in Aqaba, a tank of chlorine gas fell
while it was being carried by a crane aboard a ship, unleashing the deadly
material and causing at least 13 fatalities and over 260 injuries.
According to the secretary-general of the Jordanian
Judicial Council, Walid Kanakreeh, the PPO-elected technical committee's report
on the toxic gas incident revealed that "insufficient" risk
assessment and improper handling of containers containing highly hazardous
materials were major contributing factors to the tragedy.
According to him, the research revealed
"accumulated" incompetence at the operating units of the port of
Aqaba, "wrong" installation of the container iron wire, and failure
to calculate handling times.
According to Kanakreeh, who also serves as the
council's media spokesperson, among the eight people charged with crimes was
violating Jordan's Environmental Protection Law's directives for the management
of hazardous chemicals.
He added that the investigation is "ongoing and
in its final phases" and that the public prosecutor had decided to have
the eight people detained pending the probe.
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