At the 50th hearing of the Eternit trial, the PP asked for a very heavy sentence for the company owners and top management. ‘I have never witnessed a disaster such as this, affecting communities and workers and which will continue to reap deaths for time to come’.

 ‘An appalling disaster’ this is how PP Raffaele Guariniello described the events involving the asbestos multinational in the court room today. The PP asked for 20 years each for both the top managers of the company accused of wilful and malicious disaster.

‘I re-read the sentences the High Court pronounced in the most severe cases of disaster and deaths – Guariniello explained – and I realised there was nothing which compared to a disaster such as the one re-lived in the course of this trial. A disaster which affected communities of workers and citizens and which continues to kill people taking placein Italy and in other countries of the world directed by the same hand without any courtcalling those in charge to answer’.

In the dock: Stephan Schmidheiny, the 64 year old Swiss billionaire and Jean Louis Marie Ghislain de Cartier de Marchienne, an 89 year old Belgian baron.

The charges against them are: wilful and deliberate environmental disaster (for pollutionand the scattering of the asbestos killer fibres) and deliberate and wilful failure to implement precautions in the work place. The PP also added three more charges: permanent disqualification from any public office, ban from any contract (and negotiation) with a public administration or agency and disqualification from any company management position for 10years.

The PP’s requests took into consideration ‘the incredible seriousness of the damaged caused’, of the great weight of the of the "wilfuland direct intent" that is that in spite of them being aware and able to foreseethe risk, the consciously accepted the risk of the possible outcome of the events. The defendants’ propensity to commit crimes is proven by their failing to disclose the dangerousness of the materialused and the impact such material would have on the community, thus laying the foundations for anappalling disaster.

The Eternit trial of Turin is the main criminal lawsuit never held in Europe on asbestos. It involves more than 2000 victims related to the exposition of the asbestos labored in the four Eternit Italian plants (Cavagnolo, Casale Monferrato, Rubiera near Reggio Emilia and Bagnoli in the Naples area). Only in Casale Monferrato, Piedmont, 1600 workers died as a result of exposure to asbestos. The alleged offenses ranging from 1952 to 2008.

The sentence is expected by the winter of 2011.

(By Asbestos Victims Families Casale, Asbestos in the dock, 04/07/2011)