January 25th, 2010. The only public hearing this month has given the defendant's lawyer the chance to ask for an exclusion of the civil authorities from the trail. For the last time, the judge Casalbore invited to sign up for the plaintiff.

The lawyers of the firms Etex Group (Belgium), Eternit Schweiz, Hanova Holding A.g., Amindus Holding A.g., Ametex A.g. and Becon A.g. (Switzerland), and the ones representing the European Community and the Italian Cabinet, asked to consider the exclusion of their clients from the trial in which they're charged as civil liable parts for permanent intentional environmental disaster, facing a compensation request of around 500 million euro.

While the request by the EU and the Italian Cabinet was widely welcomed by the public prosecutor, the counter-party and the plaintiff lawyers showed a decisive opposition to the companies’ attempt of sneaking away from the trial. The current companies always claimed that they're the "apparent heir" of the ones of the 70s, the ones that date back to Schmidheiny's and De Cartier De Marchienne's period: why are they now trying to detach themselves from their own past? "How can we suppose that the two defendants acted individually, without any support by their own factory system?" argued the barrister Sergio Bonetto.

An objection of unconstitutionality has also been raised by one of the Schmidheiny defendants, Alessio Di Amato: in his opinion the lawsuit doesn't seem to fulfill the requirement of a "fair judgment". In fact, it gives to the opposite parts a different time-frame for the inquiry into the documentation. Di Amato also claims that the plaintiff shouldn't be acknowledged in a penal proceeding like this, asking to consider the unconstitutionality of this participation. In case the judge Casalbore would receive this objection, the legal proceeding could suffer its first important temporary stop.

After 4 hours of debate, the short second session of the Eternit trial has been deferred to the 3th hearing on February 8.

Say NO the the "quick trial" act. JUSTICE !!!
A law proposal is on the way to promulgation in Italy: the "quick trial" act will impose a fixed time for the penal proceedings, nullifying the effectiveness of many current trials, as well as many others to come. Under the apparence of a "law for the people" lies low the attempt for a new amnesty, a very useful measure to preserve the impunity of our prime minister Berlusconi.

The barrister Sergio Bonetto reassures us: "Theoretically the charge of intentional disaster with its 12 years of possible sentence, rule out the Eternit trial from the new act enforcement". But he also adds: "The defendant's lawyers already listed 3500 individuals to testify in the trial: a quarter of those would be enough to bring the proceeding out of the time-frame of the new rules".

5 PULLMANS FROM CASALE MONFERRATO: more than 200 citizens decided to attend the second session of the trial.

(By Asbestos Victims Families Casale, Asbestos in the dock, 25/01/2010)