DOHA: A higher court yesterday overruled the verdict of a lower court which had held five individuals responsible for the Villaggio fire.
The May 2012 blaze claimed 19 lives, 13 of them children, in a daycare on an upper floor.
The Court of Appeals found the company that owns the mall guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
Handing out the verdict, it said the families of all 19 victims were entitled to blood money of QR200,000 each.
The court asked the company that owns the mall to arrange with its insurance company and others to pay the blood money.
The higher court’s verdict running into 154 pages means that no one will go to jail.
However, the company has the right, said the court, to file civil lawsuits against its tenants who it thinks were responsible for technical faults that led to the fire.
The fire broke out on May 28 and in the childcare facility the children and six others suffocated to death.
The blaze started from a sporting goods store which the higher court said the insurance company concerned can file a civil lawsuit against.
All convicts should be released unless behind the bars in other cases, said the court.
The Peninsula
