A Dubai court has ordered a company owner to pay blood money to the families of two workers who were electrocuted while performing maintenance work at a fish pond.

The company’s Indian owner, who also received a one-month suspended prison sentence, was charged with negligence, including failing to provide safety training to employees.

Untrained workers were sent to the Jumeirah villa to clean the fish pond in July last year, but without any safety equipment, the Dubai Criminal Court was told.

This week, the court ordered the accused to pay Dh3,000 and Dh200,000 in blood money to the families of each victim.

He denies the charges, claiming he was outside the UAE when the incident took place, and the case has been referred to the Court of Appeal.

On the day of the incident, workers used a water pump to clean the pond, but left the wire open, which led to their death.

Judges were told that the housekeeper alerted the owner of the villa, who called the police.

“My servant told me that one of the workers fell into the pond. They died as a result of electric shock due to weak wiring of the treatment plant while they were doing repairs,” said the owner of the villa.

According to the report submitted by the Dubai Municipality to the judges, the wire of the electric pump fell into the pond.

Two workers entered the pond to clear the rocks without cutting the power and were not wearing rubber safety boots.

“The company did not provide adequate training to the employees and there was no adequate supervision of the company’s compliance with the safety rules to prevent the accident,” the report said.

The sales manager who sent the workers off said he was unaware the company was not licensed to carry out such repairs.

“The two victims were involved in both sales and cleaning and maintenance of fish ponds. I dropped them at the villa, but an hour later I got a call that they were dead. Two [workers] they were new to the company,” said the sales manager.

Updated: 02 September 2022, 11:51