Post date: Oct 22, 2012 6:21:0 PM
An Italian court has convicted six scientists and a government official to six years in prison after failing to give adequate warning of the deadly earthquake which destroyed the city of L'Aquila and killed 309 people in 2009.
L'AQUILA, ITALY (OCTOBER 22, 2012) (REUTERS) - An Italian court convicted six scientists and a government official on Monday (Friday 22) for failing to give adequate warning of the deadly earthquake which destroyed the city of L'Aquila and killed 309 people in 2009.
After several hours of deliberation, Judge Marco Billi read the sentence out in the improvised courtroom in an industrial zone outside the still-wrecked city centre.The seven, all members of a body called The National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks, were charged with negligence and malpractice in evaluating the danger of an earthquake and keeping the city informed of the risks.
The case has drawn wide condemnation from bodies including the American Geophysical Union, which said the risk of litigation would deter scientists from advising governments or even working in seismology and seismic risk assessments.
The six scientists were Franco Barberi, Enzo Boschi, Giulio Selvaggi, Gian Michele Calvi,Claudio Eva and Mauro Dolce as well as Bernardo De Bernardis, an official in the Civil Protection Authority.
Bernardis, who was in the courtroom, remained stoney-faced as the sentence was delivered.
"It is a sentence that I just can't understand. It is a sentence that just doesn't make any sense," defence lawyer for Alessandra Stefano said.
"I still have the same opinion I always had and that has been confirmed with this debate (in the courtroom), there are no elements of responsibility. We will have to wait and see the motivation for this decision."
A 6.3 strength earthquake struck L'Aquila, in the Abruzzo region of central Italy at 3.32 am. on April 6, 2009, wrecking some 65,000 buildings, injuring around 1,500 people and killing hundreds still sleeping. More than three years later, much of the medieval town is still in ruins.
At the heart of the case was a question of whether the government-appointed experts gave an overly reassuring picture of the risk facing L'Aquila, which had already been partially destroyed three times by earthquakes over the centuries.
"Now they will start to take their responsibilities a bit more seriously," Claudia Carosi, who lost her sister in the earthquake, said outside the court house.
"Obviously my sister will never return, she won't return today nor ever again. But we are tired that in this country whoever is in a certain level of responsibility can neglect their responsibilities."
"Finally some justice, I hope this never happens again," added Linda Visioni, who had lost her daughter and two grandchildren.
"This is not a vendetta because even they (the accused) have their families but what we have gone through is just terrrible, it never ends, each day is worse. It has never ended."
The case focused in particular on a series of low-level tremors which hit the region in the months preceding the earthquake and which prosecutors said should have warned experts not to underestimate the risk of a major shock.
Defence lawyers said earthquakes could not be predicted and even if they could, nothing could be done to prevent them and that it was meaningless to talk of failure to give an adequate warning of the event.
"I know, as someone from l'Aquila, I come from L'Aquila and have sentiments that are not of a scientist, but somehow I know I had to confront a situation that was confused and we needed to have another non-emotional level of thought after the (March) 30th (2009)" said de Bernadis, who seemed unable to believe the guilty verdict.
The case is part of a wider controversy over the disaster in L'Aquila, which is still largely unresolved more than three years later and which has been at the centre of a series of bitter rows over Italy's disaster preparedness.
Prosecutors said they did not expect scientists to provide a precise forecast but that the commission had given "incomplete, imprecise and contradictory" information on the danger facing the town after a meeting of the Commission on March 31, 2009, a few days before the earthquake.
According to scientific opinion cited by prosecutors, the series of low-level tremors should have led the experts not to underestimate the risk of a major earthquake in zone known to be at high risk of seismic shocks.
Instead, they said the experts had made a series of statements downplaying the risks of a repeat of the earthquakes which wrecked the town in 1349, 1461 and 1703 and saying the smaller shocks were a "normal geological phenomenon".
They cited relatives of victims who said the reassuring message given by the authorities meant they were unable to form an informed estimate of the real risk they were facing.
They said the quake in April was "not an exceptional event" either in terms of its strength or in terms of the town's record of earthquake activity.
Italy is among the most earthquake-prone countries in Europe and has been struck repeatedly by lethal tremors, most recently in May 2012, when 16 people were killed and hundreds injured by a 5.8 tremor in the Emilia Romagna region.