Jordan: trial opens in fatal oxygen shortage case

The trial of thirteen Jordanian Ministry of Health officials accused of causing the death of seven Covid-19 patients at a hospital in the Kingdom earlier this month opened on Sunday, local media have reported.

The defendants include some who worked at the ministry and others who worked at the hospital in Salt where the incident took place. They are accused of causing the unintentional death of the seven patients due to a failure in the supply of oxygen.

Eleven of the suspects were present in the Amman Court of First Instances. The other two attended via a video link because they have tested positive for Covid-19. All pleaded not guilty.

The court rejected a request for bail by the defence lawyers. The defendants will be held in custody for an additional week.

Prosecutors say that their investigation found that the defendants failed to follow proper cautionary procedures and take the law and regulations into account, reported the Jordan Times. This, it is alleged, resulted in an oxygen outage at the ICU for around one hour, which ultimately resulted in several deaths and further complications for the other patients in the unit on 13 March.

The case continues this week.

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