Will there be a trial before the criminal court? Nothing has yet been decided but the investigating judges announced on October 17 that they had completed their investigations into the explosion in January 2019 on rue de Trévise, in Paris, which left four dead and dozens injured, said this Friday the prosecution, confirming information from the Parisian.
The parties may send their observations or requests for action to the investigating judges. It will then be up to the prosecution to take its requisitions, then the investigating magistrates will order or not a trial before the criminal court.
Several accusations
On the morning of January 12, 2019, rue de Trévise in the 9th arrondissement, an explosion killed four people, including two firefighters; 66 people were injured and around 400 victims.
In this judicial investigation opened at the end of January 2019, the Paris town hall and the co-ownership trustee of the building are indicted for “homicides and involuntary injuries” and “destruction, degradation or deterioration by the effect of an explosion or ‘a fire “. The construction company Fayolle, commissioned in November 2016 to carry out work on the sidewalk, is placed under the status of assisted witness. For its part, GRDF is not targeted by any prosecution.
Several expertise requested
To pronounce the indictments, the magistrates of the collective accidents unit of the Paris court relied on two expert reports. A first report, in December 2019, concluded that a subsidence of the ground, under the sidewalk, had caused the rupture of a gas pipe, leading to an accumulation of natural gas causing the explosion. In this document, the experts noted “failings” of the City’s road service, particularly in the repair of the sidewalk, without incriminating GRDF.
Then in a final report in May 2020, they once again pointed out a “lack of vigilance” on the part of the City of Paris and blamed the building’s co-ownership trustee for delaying repairing the leak from a water collector. waste. The end of the investigations was first announced in December 2021. But the City of Paris obtained at the end of March 2022 from the Court of Appeal that a second opinion be ordered, which reopened the case.
In this second opinion delivered on June 30, a panel of experts noted five “errors” without contradicting the two previous reports. In the civil aspect, however, GRDF’s responsibility is underlined: reports concluded that corrosion of the gas pipeline coupled with subsidence of the ground due to water infiltration was the cause of the rupture of this pipeline.