Qatar to arrest fire offenders

Qatar has ordered the arrest of five people involved in the management of a Doha shopping mall ravaged by a fire in which 19 people, mainly children, were killed, the state news agency reported. Crown Prince Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani has ordered a  commission to investigate the tragedy, the Doha-based Al-Jazeera television reported. Attorney General Ali Bin Futeis Al Murri “ordered the arrest of the Villagio mall owner... its manager and its deputy manager,” the official QNA news agency reported late on Tuesday. It said that arrest warrants had also been issued for the mall’s deputy director of security and for the owner of the Gympanzee nursery where the children and teachers died. So far, no official statement on the cause of the fire has been released. The Qatari cabinet offered its “condolences” to King Hamad Bin Khalifa and top officials as well as to the families of the victims. Crown Prince also visited the victims’ countries’ embassies in Doha and offered his condolences, QNA reported. The report did not specify if any charges have been filed against any of the five. The report of arrest orders came hours after relatives and friends bade a tearful farewell to the victims of Monday’s tragic inferno at a moving ceremony. New Zealand triplets and three Spanish siblings were among the 13 children killed in the fire. Two firefighters also died while trying to evacuate the nursery.