The trial over the collapse of Rana Plaza, a building in Bangladesh where several textile companies had their garment factories, has resumed after more than five years of hiatus, the Bangladesh Prosecutor’s Office said on Tuesday. The 2013 collapse claimed more than 1,130 lives and is the worst industrial disaster in Bangladesh to date.
The trial, which involved murder, was suspended after several defendants appealed. Earlier, the Bangladesh Supreme Court decided to stay the charges against two local officials accused of authorizing the insufficiently safe construction of the five-storey building complex near Dhaka.
On Monday, a judge ordered the retrial of 36 of the accused. The judge explained that consideration of a motion to overturn the Supreme Court decision would take place separately. “We want to complete the process as quickly as possible. Too much time has already been lost,” Attorney General Sheikh Hemayet Hossain told AFP.
A catastrophe that shook the textile industry awake
A court in 2016 charged 41 people with murder for declaring the building’s construction standards sound and forcing factory workers to show up at their workplaces despite the appearance of troubling cracks the day before the disaster. “The building had no blueprint. It trembled when the machines were put into operation. And the building’s owner, Sohel Rana, used henchmen to force workers back to work on the day of the collapse,” the prosecutor added.
Rana Plaza collapsed on April 23, 2013. Rescue workers had been trying for several weeks to salvage the bodies from the rubble. More than 2,000 people were injured, many of whom are still suffering from the consequences today. Other victims are still missing. “We’ve been waiting for justice for nine years,” said 35-year-old Rehana Akhter, a former worker trapped in the rubble who had her left leg amputated.
She hopes Sohel Rana, who is the only defendant not released on bail, will be sentenced to compensate victims like herself. The clothing factories in the building worked for numerous foreign companies such as the American retailer Walmart, the fashion group C&A, the retail chains Auchan, Mango, Primark, Carrefour and the Benetton Group.
The Rana Plaza tragedy had highlighted the devastating working conditions of four million workers making clothes for Western retailers.
Bangladesh’s economy has benefited greatly in recent years from the textile industry, which has a turnover of 35 billion US dollars (31 billion euros) and accounts for over 80 percent of the country’s exports. (AFP)
Featuring: Zakir Hossain Chowdhury, Andalou Agency
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