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 Six private event organizers and four city workers face five years
in jail if convicted for the deaths and injuries at the popular
annual Love Parade festival, where mass panic broke out because the
only entrance gate was too small for the huge crowd.
The 10 people charged have denied wrongdoing in the July 24, 2010
disaster, Duisburg prosecutor Horst Bien told journalists.
"Something happened on July 24, 2010 that should never have
happened," Bien said. "We weren't looking to see who was morally or
politically responsible but instead focused only on who was
criminally liable."
Eight foreigners — from Spain, Bosnia, the Netherlands, Australia,
Italy and China — were among those killed when young people pushed
through an underpass into the festival grounds at a former freight
rail yard.
State prosecutors investigated why an event set up for 250,000
people ended up with nearly 500,000 attending. Bien said the
entrance was not big enough to handle the numbers of those attending
and said those charged should have known that.
"Mistakes in planning were the main reason for the disaster," Bien
said.
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Accustomed to a high degree of efficiency and organization at such
events, Germans were dumbfounded by the chaos and by media reports
that officials and organizers did not heed warnings that there would
be problems with such a massive crowd.
(Reporting By Erik Kirschbaum; editing by Tom Heneghan)
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