First lawsuit filed over DR nightclub disaster

The first lawsuit has been filed against the owners of the Jet Set nightclub over the disaster that killed at least 231 people in the Dominican Republic.

More than 400 people were inside the club in Santo Domingo for a merengue concert by 69-year-old singer Rubby Pérez, who was among the victims when the roof collapsed in the early hours of 8 April.

Interior minister Faride Raful told reporters that 189 people had been pulled alive from the rubble, while a dozen are still being treated in hospital.

It was the deadliest nightclub disaster in more than a decade – since 242 people died and over 600 injured at Kiss in southern Brazil in January 2013.

Now, the parents and widow of police lieutenant Virgilio Rafael Cruz Aponte, who died in the Jet Set club tragedy, are seeking manslaughter charges against the 52-year-old venue’s owner and managers, and are also pursuing a civil claim against the authorities.

“This tragedy is not only attributable to the owners and managers of the Jet Set nightclub… but also to Dominican state institutions”

“This tragedy is not only attributable to the owners and managers of the Jet Set nightclub… but also to Dominican state institutions,” reads the filing, as per France 24. “They failed to fulfil their legal duties of supervision, inspection, and authorisation of operations for establishments open to the public.

“The facts described here testify to a chain of structural negligence and security omissions, attributable not only to the managers [and] shareholders of the nightclub, but also to public institutions.

“These institutions, by failing in their duties of inspection, supervision, and control, violated their legal functions and fostered a dangerous environment that culminated in this avoidable tragedy.”

The nightclub’s owner Antonio Espaillat has said he is fully co-operating with the probe into the cause of the collapse.

Local and international experts have been drafted in as part of the investigation, which is likely to take several months, according to the authorities.

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