Engineer given six years in prison over Latvian supermarket collapse

A Latvian construction engineer was sentenced to six years in prison on Tuesday over the 2013 collapse of a supermarket that killed 54 people, the country's worst disaster since gaining independence in the early 1990s. Ivars Sergets was found guilty of breaching construction rules and of manslaughter through negligence after the roof of a supermarket in a suburb of Riga caved in. It is the first sentence handed down in a high-profile case that saw the prime minister at the time resign.

The court acquitted eight other defendants, including the architect of the building, the construction inspector and officials from the Riga construction authority. Sergent, who had denied wrongdoing, declined to comment to Reuters at the courthouse and refused to say whether he would appeal against the decision.