French prosecutor appeals Queen Mary verdict
PARIS, Feb 20 (Reuters) - A French prosecutor appealed on Wednesday against a court's decision to clear eight employees of manslaughter in the collapse of a gangway in 2003 that killed 16 people visiting the Queen Mary cruise liner.
The accident happened when construction workers and their families crowded on to the gangway during a weekend visit to the luxury liner which was nearing completion in dockyards in the French port of St Nazaire on the Atlantic coast.
The structure collapsed, sending people plunging more than 15 metres (45 feet) to the ground. Apart from those killed, 29 others were injured.
A court in St. Nazaire last week fined shipbuilders Chantiers de l'Atlantique, and Endel, the firm that assembled the gangway, 177,500 euros ($261,200) each -- less than the 307,500 euros sought by the prosecution.
The firms had been ordered to pay out more than 10 million euros in civil suits, of which four million has been paid.
The court formally recognised that the families of the victims had suffered anguish since the accident.
But the clearing of the eight employees -- four from each of the two firms -- who were accused with their companies of manslaughter and related charges triggered bitter outbursts from relatives.
The prosecution had sought suspended jail sentences of three years and 45,000 euros fine for each of the eight.
Saint-Nazaire Prosecutor Pierre-Marie Block "hereby states that he is today appealing against all the criminal elements of the verdict reached by the Saint-Nazaire criminal court in the case of the Queen Mary 2 gangway collapse," court spokesman Remi Schwartz, said in a statement. (Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Stephen Weeks)
