Two engineers were convicted of negligent homicide and negligent bodily harm on 14 counts. A third defendant was acquitted. A construction worker died in the accident in June 2016 and 14 were injured.
About seven years after the deadly collapse of a motorway bridge near Schweinfurt, the district court sentenced two engineers to prison terms. A third defendant was acquitted. The prison sentences for negligent homicide and negligent bodily harm in 14 cases were suspended on probation. The presiding judge said on Wednesday at the district court of Schweinfurt. The judgments are not yet final.
On June 15, 2016, the shoring for the new Schraudenbach viaduct on Autobahn 7 near Werneck collapsed when 1,500 tons of concrete had just been poured in. One construction worker died and 14 were injured. The day before, the public prosecutor’s office had pleaded for suspended prison sentences for the three accused men. Accordingly, the load-bearing capacity of the scaffolding was not calculated at all – and this deficiency was not noticed by the engineers commissioned with checking the statics.
The 49, 59 and 65-year-old defendants themselves, on the other hand, blamed the construction companies and spoke of execution errors by the workers – their defense lawyers had pleaded for acquittal. The court ruled on one and a half years in prison for the 59-year-old and nine months in prison for a 49-year-old.