Murcia Nightclub Fire: No Investigation for City Council Officials
The Audiencia Provincial of Murcia has dismissed a petition to investigate city council officials for their alleged role in the 2023 nightclub fire that killed 13 people. Families of the victims have spent two years seeking accountability, arguing that the Murcia City Council's negligence contributed to the tragedy at the Golden, Teatre, and La Fonda nightclubs.
Families' Frustration and Legal Battles
The families of the deceased sought to open a separate case for alleged malfeasance, arguing that the city's permissiveness in controlling the nightclubs was a key factor in the fire. They believe that administrative decisions constituted malfeasance and were a decisive cause of the fire and the deaths. However, the judge of Court Number 3 rejected this idea twice, and now the Audiencia Provincial confirms her decision.
The families felt strongly that the Ayuntamiento should be held accountable. "We think that the court is currently acting as a shield for the Ayuntamiento; this is really the obstacle that we are finding to obtain justice, since the court is preventing the Ayuntamiento from responding for what has happened," said José Manuel Muñoz Ortín, representing families of four of the victims.
Court Ruling and Lack of Connection
The court stated that a "reasonable legal-criminal relationship" could not be established between the alleged crime of manslaughter by gross negligence resulting from the fire and a possible crime of malfeasance by authorities or public officials for issuing arbitrary resolutions in administrative matters. The court believes that this connection between the two crimes would only be possible "by resorting to extraordinarily forced factual and legal interpretations and completely alien to the rules and essential guarantees of the criminal process." The resolution adds that, to open separate proceedings in a criminal procedure, the Law on Criminal Procedure establishes several "strictly limited" assumptions that are not met in this case, so it dismisses all requests from the victims.
Safety Violations and Closure Order
The nightclubs that caught fire on October 1, 2023, failed to comply with all safety and fire evacuation regulations and had a closure order in effect that was never executed. According to Jairo Correa, who lost his daughter in the fire, the nightclubs Teatre and Fonda Milagros should not have been open that night, as they had a cease of activity order since January 2022. This order was motivated by a work done several years earlier to divide the industrial building occupied by the rooms into two.
Ongoing Investigation
Despite the dismissal of the case against the city council, the investigation continues with the seven individuals currently under investigation. These include the engineer who carried out the division project, the person in charge of Fonda Milagros, three people in charge of Teatre, the disc jockey who organized a party at that nightclub on the night of the fire, and the owner of a cold fire machine that was used at the party and is believed to have started the fire.
