Construction Site Tragedy: Prison Sentences Handed Down in Fatal Épinay Fall Case

After several hearings, the Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis) criminal court handed down its verdict. Fathy Abou Shreef, the manager of the SRI company, presumed to be on the run in Egypt, who was absent from the trial at the end of January, as well as from the deliberations rendered on Tuesday, April 4, was sentenced to one year in prison, reports Le Parisien. He is now the subject of an arrest warrant. Four other defendants received sentences of up to three years in prison, including six months in prison. Worker, salesman, site manager, and the contact person for everyone on the Plaine Commune Habitat construction site, Hafid Biyi was sentenced to three years in prison, including thirty months suspended. He is also prohibited from managing a company for ten years. During the trial in Bobigny at the end of January, prosecutor Alix Bukulin had requested up to 8 months in prison and a 150,000 euro fine.

On June 8, 2019, while Kamel Benstaali and Omar Azzouz, aged 29 and 34, were working on the exterior insulation of building 2, north side, on a renovation site in Épinay, the two men died following the collapse of a kind of platform, an elevating work platform, guided on two masts, at eighteen stories high on which they were standing. On the orders of the public prosecutor’s office, the brigade for the repression of delinquency against persons (BRDP) of the judicial police conducted an investigation which revealed that Kamel and Omar were undocumented and working illegally, as their employer (the SRI company) had declared them on June 10, two days after their death.