Posted on December 16, 2017

BLOG  and RELEASE by AFeVA – Casale Monferrato

On the morning of the 14th of December the Court of Cassation announced it had rejected the appeal by the Prosecutor and General Persecution of Turin against the investigating magistrate (GUP)’s verdict which in November 2016 had redefined the indictment against SS from murder to wilful manslaughter (omicidio colposo con colpa cosciente), that is to say aggravated by the fact that the defendant was aware that deaths could occur from the exposure to asbestos. The General Prosecutor of Italy for the Court of Cassation had already applied for it to be rejected as had SS’s lawyers Guido Alleva and Astolfo Di Amato who had also petitioned for formal matters. Lawyer Gatti, in representation of all the plaintiffs had upheld the opposite.  The ruling (motivations ) will be known in 30 days and may be more detailed.

 As a result the case will go along as the investigating magistrate has ruled: four trials according to the area,

In Turin the case opens with preliminaries on the 19th of December. Naples has asked for a murder trial and the case will open on Feb 13th so that the ruling will be known by then. The Vercelli Court has not yet said anything (they have 240 Casale cases) nor has Reggio Emilia (for the 2 Rubiera deaths). All the other deaths, given the  Indictment fall under the statute of limitations

AFEVA PRESS RELEASE

With reference to the decision of the Court of Cassation and the ruling on the Eternit Bis trial, Afeva, the Associations of Asbestos Victims and relatives of Casale Monferrato and Cavagnolo states the following:

“Only by reading the ruling (in 30 days – Currently,  the only known part of the ruling is that the Prosecutor’s appeal was rejected TN) will we  know whether the Court of Cassation, that demolished the greatest trial ever for environmental disaster in 2014, has also accepted the unprecedented ruling of the Turin investigating magistrate who ruled out any malice by Stephan Schmidheiny. Frankly it would be too much.

Given our respect for the Court and institutions (even the one which have bitterly disappointed us in the past) , best for us to think that the rejection is due to formal reasons of the trial process.

Although the ruling (aka motivations)  is not yet known the outcome is: the Eternit-bis trial has been divided into four separate trials, something we would have wanted to avoid because it means we cannot proceed united with a Prosecution that is well acquainted with the case. However daunting we must not fear.

Our battle is not lost, we just have to fight on more than one front.

We are committed to the fact that these separate cases will in future have one and only one ending: sentencing Stephan Schmidheiny”.

Casale Monferrato, December the 15th 2017.

AFeVA – Casale Monferrato