Two former heads of Swiss cement giant Eternit will face trial over asbestos-linked tumours among the Italian workforce of the multinational, a court ruled at a preliminary hearing Wednesday. Eternit's Swiss owner, Stephan Schmidheiny, 61, and former Eternit managing director and Belgian executive Baron Louis de Cartier de Marchienne, 88, are accused of failing to ensure adequate safety measures at four asbestos-cement plants run by Eternit in Italy in the 1980s and '90s.

''An important page has been written in the tormented history of asbestos in Italy and the world,'' said public prosecutor Raffaele Guariniello, who began probing the case in 2002. Guariniello claims around 2,000 people have died from asbestos-linked tumours among Eternit staff, their families and people living near the factories affected by asbestos dust in the air, while hundreds more are ill.

According to Guariniello, who has been probing the deaths since 2002, Eternit's products were also used to pave streets and courtyards or as roof insulation in the towns around the factories without warnings about the dangers of asbestos, resulting in decades-long exposure for the local population.

Wednesday's decision was greeted with applause, smiles and tears by 140 residents from the north-western town of Casale Monferrato, the location of one of Eternit's plants, who were in court to hear the ruling. ''Four people get ill every month in our town and 40 die each year,'' said Tommaso A., one of the residents.

Bruno Pesce, coordinator of the association of victims' families, said the decision was ''a great page in justice''. ''We still have a long way to go, but this is an important step,'' he added. Pietro C., a former Eternit worker, said he and one other man were the only two of 30 workers in his department still alive. ''Now those people must go to jail,'' he said.

However, Eternit's defence lawyer Guido Carlo Alleva, warned that history ''should not be put on trial''. "Asbestos is part of our history, and not only our industrial history. It's wrong to try to put history on trial by putting men on trial''. He said his clients should be judged ''for what they did or didn't do, not for their eventual social responsibilities''. The trial is set to begin on December 10.

Previous Eternit trial
The current trial regards asbestos-producing plants that Eternit ran in Casale Monferrato, Cavagnolo near Turin, Bagnoli near Naples and Rubiera near Reggio Emilia. Employees and their families have long claimed that Eternit did little or nothing to protect its workers and residents living around its factories from the dangers of asbestos.

Many contend that the Swiss company, which pulled out of the asbestos business more than a decade ago, never warned its employees of the dangers of working with asbestos. In 1993, four of Eternit's former Casale Monferrato managers were convicted of wilfully neglecting safety regulations and given sentences of up to three and a half years on suits filed by 137 workers.

In 2006, Eternit set up a fund of 1.25 million Swiss francs to help former employees in Switzerland who are suffering from asbestos-related illnesses. In October the multinational agreed to pay out almost nine million euros in compensation to workers at another asbestos-cement plant in the Sicilian town of Siracusa.

Schmidheiny has said he is ready to make tens of millions of euros available in compensation for victims at the multinational's asbestos-producing plants in Casale Monferrato, Cavagnolo, Rubiera and Bagnoli. According to the Institute for Workplace Protection and Security (ISPESL), Italy used more than 20 million tonnes of asbestos before it was banned in 1992 and until the late 1980s was one of the largest producers and importers of asbestos. ISPESL says Italy is one of the western countries worst hit by asbestos-related illnesses, with around 1,350 cases of mesothelioma reported each year.

(ANSA, 22/07/2009)