Eternit, new appeal trial ordered for Schmidheiny

There will be a new appeal process for the Swiss entrepreneur Stephan Schmidheiny, accused of aggravated manslaughter in the Eternit affair. This was decided by the judges of the fourth section of the Supreme Court who, after approximately 5 hours of deliberation, ordered a new second degree judgment in relation to around sixty victims. The Supreme Judges also declared that the statute of limitations had expired in reference to another 25 asbestos victims.

The request of the General Prosecutor's Office, which had essentially requested confirmation of the 9 year and 6 month sentence for the Swiss tycoon, was therefore not accepted. The trial had returned to the attention of the Supreme Court after the annulment of the first appeal proceedings due to the failure to translate into German the sentence with which the Turin judges had condemned the entrepreneur for the deaths caused by asbestos in the Casale Monferrato plant, a center in the province of Alessandria. The translated sentence was filed last April and the defendant's defenders presented the appeal to the Court of Cassation in May. The entrepreneur, now 79 years old, managed the Piedmontese plant for ten years, from 1976 to 1986. He is accused of multiple aggravated manslaughter for the deaths of 91 people. For another 300 victims the charges were dropped in light of acquittal sentences and the statute of limitations in other levels of judgement. A delegation from the Asbestos Victims' Family Association (Afeva) of Casale Monferrato was also present at the Court of Cassation and attended the reading of the sentence. In Piazza Cavour a banner was displayed with the words "Justice-Research-Reclamation".

During the indictment, the representative of the prosecution, in asking for the inadmissibility of the appeal presented by the defendant's defenders, stated that the procedural questions raised by Schmidheiny's lawyers are "inconsistent". "The sentence - he added during the indictment - of the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Turin is well motivated and provides procedural protection to the right to life". Many family members of the victims were also present at the Court of Cassation. The banner with the words "Justice-Research-Reclamation" was displayed in Piazza Cavour. "It is a justice that eludes us, a true injustice. More time will pass and other cases will be prescribed", comments Nicola Pondrano, a former Eternit worker, while the plaintiff's lawyer, Giacomo Mattalia, speaks of "great disappointment, especially for the offended parties and also for me. Our frustration is that we are once again unable to give justice to this drama".

"In Casale Monferrato people continue to die. Almost 50 people a year. So far there have been 3 thousand victims - says Gianni Crisafulli, former deputy mayor of the Piedmontese city - my father died due to mesothelioma, even though he did not work in the company. In this process alone the victims are counted: 330 citizens and 62 former workers. We are talking about defenseless people, citizens who unknowingly lost their lives due to the use of asbestos". The trial is one of those resulting from the maxi-investigation into Eternit launched by the Turin prosecutor's office in 2004. In the first proceeding the environmental disaster was contested, but in 2015 the crime was declared time-barred by the Supreme Court. In this vein, Schmidheiny was found guilty, on appeal, of manslaughter, against a request for conviction for murder with possible malice.