Construction company officers to be indicted over Seabank fatality

A court has decreed that there are grounds to indict four construction company officials over the death of a Latvian worker during works at the Seabank hotel in 2012.

Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech ruled that the court was satisfied that there were sufficient prima facie reasons to indict B&B Construction Ltd directors Angelus Bartolo, 63, and Pierre Farrugia, 47, architect Robert Sant, 53, and general manager Etienne Bartolo, 38, for the involuntary homicide of Maksims Artamonovs, through negligence. Artamonovs had been killed when two floors of the Seabank Hotel in Ghadira Bay collapsed on him during construction works in 2012.

The ruling also discharged project manager, architect Reuben Gatt, due to lack of evidence. Proceedings against Seabank directors Francis Zammit Dimech, Sylvius Debono and Arthur Gauci had been dropped in December 2015, the court having ruled that those men had no case to answer.

In a decree handed down at the end of compilation proceedings earlier this month, the court stressed that its function in these proceedings was not to decide the guilt or innocence of the accused, but only to decide whether the grounds to indict the accused appeared to be present – a decision referred to as prima facie. These grounds were held to be present with regards to Angelus Bartolo, Etienne Bartolo, Pierre Farrugia and Robert Sant.

 During previous sittings, lawyers Lucio Sciriha and Michael Sciriha, appearing for Pierre Farrugia, and lawyer Daniel Buttigieg, assisting Robert Sant, had not contested prima facie for their clients.

Angelus Bartolo and Etienne Bartolo were represented by lawyers Paul Lia and Alessandro Lia, respectively.

Lawyer Joe Giglio was defence counsel to Reuben Gatt.