Twelve Libyan officials have been given sentences ranging from nine to 27 years in prison for their roles in the catastrophic dam collapses that killed more than 4,000 people last September.
Entire neighborhoods in the city of Derna were wiped out and evacuation attempts failed.
The convicted officials were responsible for managing the water sources and maintaining the dams.
They were charged with crimes including negligence, premeditated murder and waste of public funds, Reuters reported.
Three of the suspects were also ordered to repay money they had obtained illegally, the Public Prosecution Service said. Four others who were on trial were acquitted.
An international report in January found that the dams failed in part due to poor maintenance and governance during Libya’s more than decade-long conflict.
A week after the disaster struck Derna, angry residents set fire to the mayor’s house while they demanded answers. The entire city council was dismissed.
In the days following the floods, residents told BBC Arabic that the evacuation orders targeted the wrong part of Dernathat there were insufficient provisions for places where evacuated people could be housed and that some stay-at-home orders and curfews contradicted each other.
Local residents also told the BBC that some people who had been evacuated from the coast over fears of rising sea levels were moved to more dangerous areas that later flooded.
Storm Daniel brought the floodwaters, dumping more than 400mm of rain on parts of Libya’s north-eastern coast in 24 hours.
That is an extraordinary amount of water for an area that normally sees around 1.5mm of rain fall in the entire month of September, BBC Verify reported at the time.
According to Libya’s National Meteorological Center, there has been a new record of rainfall.
Since the ouster of long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has been divided by power struggles and currently has two governments: a UN-recognised government in Tripoli and another in the east of the country, backed by warlord Gen Khalifa Haftar.
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