PROSECUTORS are demanding jail terms of up to eight and a half years over the Murcia nightclub fire in October 2023 that claimed 13 lives.
Seven people are set to be tried with the public prosecutor’s office also wanting the defendants to be banned from managing businesses that are open to the public.
Prosecutors have sent a 64-page report to a Murcia court.
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The defendants include the owners of the adjoining Teatre and Fonda Milagros clubs in the Atalayas area of Murcia City.
The report wants charges of 13 counts of manslaughter, 12 counts of negligent injury and a single count of crimes committed against the lives and safety of employees.
It also catalogues an extensive list of breaches and safety violations.
The document says two cold-fire spark-generating machines caused the fire and states that their owner ‘took no precautions as to the risk involved in using such machines indoors’.
Prosecutors said that Teatre’s management committed a serious breach which caused a blaze that ‘endangered the lives and physical safety of the people in both nightclubs’.
It stated that both Teatre and Fonda Milagros were open without all the necessary licences.
The report added that building underwent several modifications, including the separation into two units in 2017.
“The modification of the premises was done without proper administrative oversight,” prosecutors continued.
That is said to have ‘decisively contributed to the risk to people’s safety and the rapid spread of the fire from one unit to the other’,
The public prosecutor says the defendants ‘were fully aware that their activities posed a risk to guests’.
Running in tandem with the public prosecution, are private cases concerning civil liability with lawyers representing families of the victims.
Jose Manuel Muñoz, representing one group of relatives is requesting the same prison sentences as the public prosecutor, but in addition he is demanding millions of euros in compensation for the families of three victims.
He is also concerned that Murcia City Council has not come under the spotlight with all the responsibility for the fire falling on the business.
The lawyer pointed out that the council let the businesses operate for years without licences or inspections.
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