Expert witness gives damning testimony on construction project that killed Jean Paul Sofia

Adriana Zammit, the architect responsible for the construction project which led to the death of Jean Paul Sofia had been aware of the building standards applicable to brick buildings, but had not told the builders how to reinforce them, a court was told this morning.

Sofia died in tragic circumstances, when a three-storey building that he had been working on, collapsed during construction works. Five other men had to be rescued from the rubble by members of the Civil Protection Department. His mother, Isabelle, was present for today’s court sitting.

Architect Prof. Alex Torpiano, who had been appointed to assist the magisterial inquiry into the death of Jean Paul Sofia, was called to the stand to testify in the compilation of evidence against Matthew Schembri, Kurt Buhagiar, Milomir Jovicevic, Dijana Jovicevic and architect Adriana Zammit about the exhibited report of his findings.

The five defendants stand accused of negligently causing the death of Jean Paul Sofia and the grievous injuries suffered by five other workers, amongst other charges.

“The wall built was [only] 25% of what it should have been,” he said, and another supporting wall (appoġġ) had not been bound to the stairwell, as it should have been. “This is required in order to have a resilient structure. But the wall was not bound to it,” the court expert added.

Architect Adriana Zammit

He pointed to pictures which showed a brick wall with no sign of supporting structures.

The collapse was quick, he said. “From beginning to end, four or five seconds,” Prof. Torpiano said. “The majority of the debris fell outside the site, which leads me to understand that the wall buckled outwards.” The wall had also rotated as it fell, pulled around by the collapsing structure, he said.

Mobile phone pictures of the site, which had been taken before the collapse, showed large gaps left in one wall, where windows would have eventually been, he pointed out, explaining that these would have acted “like perforations on postage stamps.” 

He had concluded that the reason for the structure’s total collapse was the slenderness of the building, which was too high and thin, combined with the fact that the walls were not properly bound together. The stiffness of a wall - the moment of inertia - depends on its thickness, he explained. “Two walls will double the moment of inertia, but if they are also bound together, that strength increases fourfold. So the absence of binding made the situation worse.”

Lawyer Joe Giglio, assisting the Sofia family, asked Torpiano what he meant by ‘binding’. The witness explained that normally, some bricks are laid at 90 degrees to the rest, to bind parallel walls to each other and make them stronger. He added that this was not the cause of the collapse but it was a contributing factor.

There were two types of binding which applied to structures: those between walls and those binding the entire structure, which are meant to prevent the total collapse of a structure in case of accidental events, he said. “When something happens, it is obvious that those structural elements will be damaged but it is not acceptable that the entire structure collapses.”

The reason that the building had collapsed the way it did was because of the absence of binding between the structural elements, the architect explained. "There should have been sufficient ties to prevent it collapsing as a whole, but it did, which shows they weren’t present."

The architectural plans had included metal reinforcements, but they did not include instructions as to where to anchor the metal, "so it wasn’t done," he added.

Gilgio also asked about a document detailing the standards of brick buildings which had been exhibited in the inquiry. “It shows that whoever made this design was aware of these standards.” replied Torpiano.

Prof. Torpiano added that there had also been a lack of knowledge on the part of the workers employed. Asked to expand on this point, he said that, of the surviving builders, only one had said that he had received relevant training in his home country and had completed a half day course in Malta and had been unable to say what the course entailed. “The others did not know what they were doing,” the expert concluded.

Of architect Adriana Zammit, he said “I don’t think she visited the site enough to notice that the wall was not being bound the way it should have been. The works weren’t supervised by the contractor, but by the owner of the plot, so they did not even have that assistance.” The language barrier may also have been a factor, suggested Giglio, adding that Matthew Schembri had said he had acted as an interpreter for some of the workers.

The building material used was also not ideal for the intended project, Prof. Torpiano added, explaining that although he had collected samples from the site, he had decided against testing them because there was no indication of what part of the building the sample bricks were to be used for, which rendered any testing  meaningless. "The perit had not specified which strength was required and hence which strength was ordered from the supplier... and secondly, there was no indication that the bricks had failed.”

In his brief cross-examination of the expert witness, lawyer Franco Debono asked which wall Prof.Torpiano had used as a basis for calculating the moment of inertia. “The one with the window,” the expert replied.

The moment of inertia is a mathematical concept that describes a material’s resistance against bending forces. It is used to determine the required thickness of a wall, amongst other things. The wall was not thick enough for its height.

Debono asked the witness whether he had calculated the centre of gravity. It had no relevance to the issue, replied the professor, telling the lawyer “I think I know what I’m talking about, here,” when Debono insisted on challenging the expert’s knowledge of physics.

The compilation of evidence will continue later this month.

Police inspectors Paul Camilleri and Antonello Magri are prosecuting.

Lawyers Joe Giglio and David Bonello are representing Isabelle Bonnici and John Sofia, the parents of the victim, as parte civile. 

Lawyers Franco Debono, Arthur Azzopardi and Jacob Magri are representing the developers, Kurt Buhagiar and Matthew Schembri. Steven Tonna Lowell is representing architect Adriana Zammit.

Lawyer Timothy Bartolo is assisting building contractor Miromir Jovicevic and his wife Dijana, who is one of the directors of Jovicevic’s company, Milmar Construction.