Azerbaijan, Baku / Тrend corr K. Zarbaliyeva / Four people suspected in the collapse of a sixteen-storeyed building being constructed in Baku were detained.
The Director General of the Mutafakkir construction company, Ali Muradov, engineer Askar Aliyev, and master builders Farhad Hasanov and Gadir Salimov, who were in charge of safety of the employees and of signing labour contracts with them, are being charged with violating construction technical norms and regulations, according to the joint report of Emergency Situations Ministry, Interior Ministry, and General Prosecutor's Office. Necessary technology was not used in the pouring of cement.
The suspects are being detained in accordance with Articles 222.2 (violation of safety regulations in construction work, mining or other work resulting in death) and 222.1 (violation of construction safety regulations) of the Criminal Code.
Five workers who were trapped in the ruins are dead, and four have been injured. The collapse also affected nearby buildings.
A preliminary investigation revealed that in accordance with the order 1673, issued by Baku City Executive Power on 30 November 1994, a land lot was given to Azerbaijan Sanaye Investisiya va Sahmdar Komersiya bank and Mutafakkir cooperative society for construction of a building in 185, Murtuza Mukhtarov street.
Although the order envisaged only designing of the construction, Muradov without permission of the Architecture-Construction Control State Inspectorate of Baku City Executive Power, and without coordination of the construction documents with adequate bodies, proceeded to construct the building in 2002, violating the law. Safety regulations were not observed during the construction.