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Dubai, Mar 17: Five men accused of wrongly causing the death of seven labourers and injuring 24 at Dubai Marina following a walkway collapse have been referred to court for prosecution.

The accident on November 8 last year occurred when scaffolding on an under-construction bridge collapsed to the ground while iron and concrete was being loaded on top of the new construction. The head of Dubai Public Prosecution, Attorney General Issam Al-Humaidan, said yesterday: “We have referred five suspects to the courts after charging them with negligence in that they caused the accidental death of the labourers.”

The five suspects are the labourers’ supervisor, the supervisor’s assistant, a safety officer, the project engineer and the project manager. The firm they worked for will be identified in court. They were all referred to the Dubai Court of First Instance to stand trial.

“The first reports were that a crane hit the bridge which caused the scaffolding to collapse and we arrested three suspects,” Issam Al-Humaidan said.

“We brought a team of Municipality experts who gave us a technical report into the accident. The reason for the accident was an overloading of iron. A large number of labourers were standing below without adhering to safety procedures. After the report, our suspects list increased to five,” he added.

Al-Humaidan urged construction companies to prevent similar accidents in the future by using all possible safety procedures. “They should be more careful especially as Dubai is now developing every day. The companies should be preventing such accidents,” he said.

The trial of the five men is expected to start shortly.