The plaintiff proposed suspended sentences for the convicted men for the collapse of the Troja footbridge
The footbridge, which has connected Prague’s Troja with Imperial Island since 1984, fell in December 2017. Four pedestrians suffered serious injuries.
In today’s closing speech at the District Court for Prague 7, public prosecutor Šimon Vavrečka stated that the Technical Administration of Roads (TSK) should have issued a recommendation for the closure of the footbridge no later than November 2016, when both a serious disruption of the footbridge system and a significant risk of collapse were already apparent.
Both Stráský and Semecký remain indicted for negligent general danger, which threatens two to eight years in prison. Vavrečka proposed a suspended sentence for them at the lower limit of the rate. He did not give further reasons for this proposal.
According to the public prosecutor, the given type of footbridge can be designed and implemented so that no joints are created between the construction segments. “In the case of the Troja Bridge, it failed,” he said.
“Corrosion processes have been going on since the bridge was put into operation, because it flowed into it – there were cracks in it,” he said, adding that the designer Stráský did not take sufficient account of side effects, namely wind load and increased load.
“If it were designed for the real effects of the load, the waterproofing of the bridge deck would not be broken and the salt would not be damaged, it could not have affected the reinforcement,” says Vavrečka.
The 68-year-old university professor Stráský is defending himself precisely by the fact that the administrator of the footbridge poured salt on its surface, which the defendant was also to recommend for inappropriate repairs to the footbridge. He denies that there were cracks in the structure before.
Semecký, 80, claims that the information he had did not indicate a photograph of the footbridge.
The capital city of Prague is asking both men for compensation of 8.2 million crowns, as they spent on removing the rubble. Insurance companies want 2.4 million. The public prosecutor suggested that the claims of the injured parties be resolved by the courts only in the subsequent civil proceedings.
In his closing remarks, Vavrečka also thanked the paramedics who took care of the injured pedestrians. “Especially the paramedics from the Central Military Hospital did an absolutely top job bordering on a miracle. We only owe them that we are not dealing with the matter with an even stricter qualification, because the injured woman was literally stolen from the gravedigger’s shovel, “the plaintiff remarked.