Line 12: prosecution charges 10 people for the collapse of the Mexico City metro

The Prosecutor’s Office of the Mexico City formally charged 10 people with intentional homicide, injury and property damage due to the collapse of the Line 12 of the capital metro that left 26 dead and a hundred wounded last May.

“The extensive, exhaustive and professional ministerial and expert work allowed us to charge public servants, individuals and legal representatives, as likely responsible for the events, for the crimes of homicide, injuries and damage to property, all guilty”announced the spokesman for the Prosecutor’s Office, Ulises Lara.

The hearing took place last Friday and of the ten people summoned before the judge, nine attended, but the local Public Ministry did not reveal their identity.

Last October, it emerged that the Mexico City Prosecutor’s Office had filed the first 10 complaints against those allegedly responsible for the accident, among which Enrique Horcasitas, former director of the Metro Project, who proposed the construction of the line, stands out.

In addition, the company CICSA, builder of the magnate Carlos Slim that built the elevated section in 2012, announced a “reparatory agreement” with the Government of the Mexico City to rehabilitate the line, although he denied having been responsible for its collapse.

The spokesman for the Prosecutor’s Office revealed that there are also “meetings” between the parties to close a reparation agreement with the victims and their families.

He also pointed out that the capital’s Public Ministry has not asked the judge for arrest warrants against any of the accused.

The new hearing date was set by the judge for March 2022, although the Prosecutor’s Office will ask for progress to be made so that “access to justice is prompt and expeditious.”

The investigation of the local Public Ministry consists of 59 volumes and more than 30,000 pages.

The tragedy occurred on May 3, when an elevated bridge collapsed in the Line 12, in the Tláhuac mayor’s office of the Mexican capital, so the wagon fell on the road and was stranded in the shape of a “V”, leaving 26 dead and a hundred wounded.

An independent report commissioned by the Government of Mexico City from a Norwegian company concluded that the accident was due to a “structural failure” of the construction.

The metro tragedy has caused a political earthquake because it splashes on the Chancellor Marcelo Ebrard, mayor of the capital when the metro was built, and the current mayor, Claudia Sheinbaum, both candidates from the ruling party to succeed President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2024.

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