Jordanian court jails two over Amman building collapse

Building owner and contractor receive three-year sentences for incident that killed 14 people

People at site of collapse building in Amman sift through belongings of their relatives. Khaled Yacoub Oweis / The National

A Jordanian court on Tuesday handed a three-year prison sentence to the owner of a building in Amman that collapsed last year, causing the deaths of 14 people.

The court awarded the same sentence to a contractor who carried out construction work that was blamed for the collapse, state television reported.

The September 13 collapse in the middle-class Al Weibdeh district was the deadliest such incident in Jordan in decades.

The trial of the two men, who were not named, began on September 25.

Their three-year sentences are the maximum applicable in such a case and can be appealed, state television reported.

The court based its verdicts on a report by specialists that attributed the collapse to the removal of a retaining wall during expansion work in a ground-floor apartment of the building.

The incident underscored a lack of enforcement of building codes and safety regulations in Jordan.

The building collapse occurred while King Abdullah II was on an official visit to France. The following month, the king donated $350,000 to buy new apartments for five of the families who lived in the collapsed building.