(ANSA) - Turin, February - Two former heads of cement company Eternit were given 16-year jail sentences by a court here on Monday for asbestos-linked tumours among the Italian workforce of the multinational.Executives given 16 years for asbestos deaths
Swiss billionaire Schmidheiny one of two bosses found guilty
Swiss billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny, 64, and former Eternit managing director and Belgian executive Baron Louis de Cartier de Marchienne, 90, were found guilty of failing to ensure adequate safety measures at two asbestos-cement plants the now-defunct Eternit ran in Italy up to the 1980s.
Some relatives of victims burst into tears in court when the sentence was read for the world's largest-ever trial into asbestos-related deaths and illnesses.
"It's a sentence that you can call truly historic for its social aspects and for its technical and legal ones," said Health Minister Renato Balduzzi. Prosecutors said that around 2,100 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.
Schmidheiny and de Cartier were found guilty for the conditions at the plants Eternit ran in Casale Monferrato and at Cavagnolo near Turin.
Jail sentences in Italy are not usually served until the appeals process has been exhausted. The Turin court ruled the statute of limitations had expired on any wrongdoing at Eternit plants at Bagnoli near Naples and at Rubiera near Reggio Emilia.
The court also awarded damages to hundreds of victims' families, with the average amount being around 30,000 euros.
There were also big damage payouts awarded to the councils of Casale Monferrato (25 million euros), Cavagnolo (four million), the Piedmont regional government (20 million) and national workplace accident and professional illness insurance fund INAIL (15 million). 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 company, which pulled out of the asbestos business more than a decade ago, never warned its employees of the dangers of working with asbestos.
According to Turin Prosecutor Raffaele 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.
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.
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.
Saturday, 18 February 2012
13 February, 14:34
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