Twelve Libyan officials were convicted and sentenced on Sunday for their roles in a disaster that killed thousands of people and wrecked a huge swath of eastern Libya, the country’s top prosecutor said.
The convictions came nearly a year after rainfall from a major storm last September inundated the aging dams above the seaside city of Derna, causing them to fail and sending an avalanche of water hurtling to the areas below. While the official death toll stands at 4,352, according to the United Nations, more than 8,000 people remain missing, many of their bodies believed to have been swept out to sea.
The flood destroyed much of Derna and the surrounding areas and displaced nearly 45,000 people. All in all, the disaster affected about 1.5 million people, 22 percent of Libya’s population, a January report by the World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations found.
A statement from the office of Libya’s attorney general, Sadiq Al-Sour, said the 12 people convicted on Sunday had been responsible for managing the country’s dams. Though prosecutors did not name them or describe the charges, a Libyan TV channel, Al-Ahrar, reported that among those convicted was Ali Al-Hibri, the general manager of a government fund that had previously been tasked with rebuilding Derna after fighting related to Libya’s years of civil war.