site.btaGovernment Sentenced to Pay BGN 150,000 to Heirs of Midzhur Ammo Plant Explosion Victim

The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) sentenced the Council of Ministers and the Ministry of Environment and Water to pay a BGN 150,000 indemnity to the heirs of a female worker killed in a 2014 explosion at the former Midzhur Ammo Plant in Gorni Lom, Northwestern Bulgaria, the SAC press office reported on Friday. The ruling is final and unappealable.

The blast completely destroyed the plant, killing 15 people who were inside and injuring 3 others who were some distance away. Criminal charges were brought against four people: the plant owner (whose son died in the incident), a work safety officer, the head of the Interior Ministry hazardous materials control service, and the secretary of the inter-agency weapons export control commission. They were acquitted at all three court instances.

The indemnity awarded on Friday came in another lawsuit, filed under the Act on the Liability of the State and the Municipalities for Damages. It was heard as an administrative case. The final SAC ruling reversed that of the first-instance court in Vidin.

The three heirs who eventually won the indemnity for the woman's death had accused the Council of Ministers for failing to take necessary measures to discontinue the dismantling 1.6 million Greek anti-personnel landmines after a warning from four NGOs in 2008. The claimants argued that the Ministry of Environment and Water should have delicensed the Videx company as operator of the plant.

The SAC found that the transfer of the anti-personnel landmines under Videx's contract with Greece's Akmon violated the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (usually referred to as the Ottawa Convention). The Convention allows the transfer of anti-personnel landmines in order to be destroyed, but not to be neutralized in any other way. The competent inter-agency commission should not have allowed the deal, and Videx should not have been licensed, the SAC reasoned.