Italian eternit trial

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ON TV. On social media. Who are we? Africa Cup Of Nations. Fight the Fake. Daily newsletter Receive essential international news every morning Subscribe. Italy justice environment. Around 2, people have now taken advantage of this offer, and compensation of more than 50 million Swiss francs has been paid out. Stephan Schmidheiny will continue to maintain this programme for the benefit of the victims of this social tragedy.

This resulted, it was alleged, in thousands of employees of former Eternit factories, as well as local residents, being exposed to asbestos dust, ultimately leading to their deaths from asbestos-related diseases.

Schmidheiny was accused had become statute-barred even before the trial before the court of first instance had begun. The Supreme Court thus did not rule on the content of the case, and found that the first criminal trial should never have been held. Despite this acquittal, at the end of Raffaele Guariniello brought further charges against Stephan Schmidheiny. Here, the Public Prosecutor used the indictment from the first Eternit trial. The vast majority of the people affected by asbestos-related diseases had also already been listed as victims in the first Eternit trial.

This is quite clearly the repeated presentation of circumstances which have already been the subject of a final and absolute judgment by all of the competent courts, and thus constitutes a violation of the principle of double jeopardy. The charges were nonetheless the subject of preliminary hearings udienza preliminare in Turin.

Decision of the court of first instance on 23 May Preliminary court proceedings concluded on 25 January This trial thus conflicts with the ruling of the Italian Supreme Court that Stephan Schmidheiny cannot be accused of acting with intent in this case. The planned charge is the voluntary homicide of 62 employees at the Eternit factory in Casale Monferrato, and local residents. Formal charges are expected to be brought in the summer of There will then be preliminary court proceedings to examine the technical aspects of those charges.

Stephan Schmidheiny email: info meyerhanspartner. The presiding judge has decided not to permit a second full trial against Stephan Schmidheiny. On 14 June , proceedings will begin in Turin to deal with the charges of negligent homicide of two former Eternit workers. The defence will continue to contest this violation of the principle of double jeopardy through all the courts.

The accusation that Stephan Schmidheiny caused the negligent homicide of two employees of Eternit factories is untenable. By contrast, the Italian state did not regulate asbestos processing during the period in question, and only instituted the first rules to protect employees many years later, under pressure from the European Union. The preliminary hearings that began in May , and that have now ended, examined the formal requirements for proceeding with a second trial. The court finds that the charge should be one of negligence and as such more than of the deaths in the charges are time-barred.

There can be no doubt that the first trial already delivered a definitive legal ruling on the conduct Stephan Schmidheiny is now being accused of in the second main proceedings in Turin. The court likened his behaviour to the Wannsee Conference where Nazi officials decided on the final solution to the Jewish question. The offence of causing a massacre therefore includes the offence of negligent homicide.

To date, more than 1, individuals have accepted the offer, and over CHF 50 million has been paid in compensation. Despite the new criminal trial, Stephan Schmidheiny will for the time being maintain this programme to the benefit of the victims of this social tragedy until the proceedings commence.

Under his leadership, the Swiss Eternit Group SEG made massive investments in workplace safety and improving production facilities with a view to protecting the health and safety of its employees. Instead, by way of capital increases and shareholder loans, SEG enabled the Italian Eternit SpA to make enormous investments of 75 billion lire — equivalent to some CHF million today — in improving workplace safety, among other things. This resulted in a dramatic reduction in dust exposure and in the number of cases of disease.

The investments also made it possible to comply with the internationally recognised safe use standard, which was also supported at that time by the World Health Organization WHO and the International Labour Organisation ILO. Owing to the significant investments in safety, the Italian Eternit SpA fell behind other asbestos processors that were producing more cheaply in the absence of regulation compelling them to comply with these safety standards, and it went into liquidation in According to the Constitutional Court, of the deaths to which the charges refer had been decided upon in the first Eternit trial.

With its decision, the Constitutional Court has instructed the Turin court to halt proceedings relating to the deaths on which verdicts have already been passed. The charges relating to the remaining 72 deaths may still be heard in court. Furthermore, of the deaths which are the subject of the new proceedings formed part of the first trial. In Italy, the focus is on the same judicial facts.

This question of law was brought before the Constitutional Court in Rome on 31 May The residual cases may still be brought before a court. Consequently, the Turin court must now halt preliminary proceedings for those deaths which formed part of the previous trial.

In the case of the 72 deaths which have not yet been decided by a court, it must decide whether or not to pursue a full trial on the basis of the charges. In the first Eternit trial, Stephan Schmidheiny was described by both the judge and the Public Prosecutor as a mass murderer, serial killer and terrorist, and the over 3, deaths stated in the case against him were held up as examples of such behavior.

Clearly, then, the court in the first Eternit trial regarded Stephan Schmidheiny as responsible for all of the deaths connected with Eternit production in Italy, and intended to convict him on that basis.

The Italian Supreme Court subsequently acquitted him of these absurd wholesale charges. It would be an abuse of the law to roll out the same case again in new proceedings. The defense will present substantive evidence that Stephan Schmidheiny is innocent. Should a second full trial be held, the defense will demonstrate that Stephan Schmidheiny must be cleared of all guilt and punishment.

The investments also made it possible to comply with the internationally recognised safe use standard which was applicable in the EU at that time and was also supported by the World Health Organization WHO and the International Labour Organisation ILO. Owing to the significant investments in safety, the Italian Eternit SpA fell behind other asbestos processors that were producing more cheaply in the absence of regulation compelling them to comply with these safety standards in Italy, and it went into liquidation in Italy did not regulate the processing of asbestos until , and then banned it from El equipo de defensa de Stephan Schmidheiny solicita detener el proceso judicial.

En el primer juicio de Eternit, Stephan Schmidheiny fue, por supuesto, absuelto por el Tribunal Supremo de Italia en noviembre de En Italia, por el contrario, se refiere a los mismos hechos judiciales. Stephan Schmidheiny es reconocido internacionalmente como un pionero al abordar los riesgos del procesamiento de amianto.

This accusation is absurd, given that the Swiss Eternit Group in fact enabled the Italian Eternit SpA to make enormous investments in improving workplace safety, and therefore never collected any profit from its shareholding during the period in question. The defence hopes that the judge responsible will rule the charges to be inadmissible at the preliminary hearing now being launched, and that he will dismiss the case.

Despite the new charges, Stephan Schmidheiny will continue to maintain the humanitarian programme set up in for the victims of the asbestos catastrophe. Nevertheless, driven purely by greed for profit, he continued to operate the factories, did not prevent the private reuse of asbestos cement waste, and did not take any effective action to improve the situation. Stephan Schmidheiny is not a murderer. Instead, with his conscientiousness within the industry, he was a pioneer in ending the processing of asbestos, and thus saved thousands of people from contracting an asbestos-related disease.

Instead, substantial investments were made. This also allowed for compliance with internationally recognised safety standards, far in excess of the requirements stipulated by law.

However, owing to the significant investments in safety, the Italian Eternit SpA fell behind other asbestos processors that did not comply with these safety standards and were able to produce more cheaply, and it was forced into liquidation in The accusation that Stephan Schmidheiny acted purely out of greed for profit, and knowingly and intentionally caused the deaths of employees and residents, is therefore absurd. As far back as — shortly after he took over as head of the Swiss Eternit Group SEG at the age of 28 — he launched a programme to develop asbestos-free products, doing so in the face of opposition from the industry.

At the same time, he urged the managers in charge locally of the Eternit factories to implement measures to protect the health and safety of employees.

Stephan Schmidheiny announced the phasing out of asbestos processing in , and from as early as a majority of Eternit products were produced without asbestos.

Stephan Schmidheiny was thus far ahead of the competition and most government regulations. To date, asbestos processing has been banned in only one third of all countries worldwide. According to the World Health Organization WHO, some million people around the world are still exposed to asbestos at their workplace. Asbestos is a social problem, for which industry, the international community and society have a shared responsibility.

It is a fact that the processing of asbestos was permitted in Italy in the period in question, and the Italian government did not concern itself with regulating the industry. The Italian authorities had not issued any regulations on dealing with asbestos at that time, and the government did not ban the processing of asbestos until Firstly, its accusations against Stephan Schmidheiny centre on the same conduct of which he was accused in the first Eternit trial.

Italy is the only country that is seeking to tackle the asbestos catastrophe by conconducting criminal proceedings against individuals. In most other industrialised countries where an asbestos ban is in effect, government and industry have found common solutions to mitigate the social tragedy. Based on his entrepreneurial and philanthropic beliefs, Stephan Schmidheiny has taken care of the actual victims of the asbestos catastrophe in Italy for years. Since , he has been offering compensation to people affected by an asbestos-related disease.

Stephan Schmidheiny will maintain this programme to the benefit of the victims of this social tragedy until further notice. Understanding the Schmidheiny trial in Italy is a difficult task, indeed.

This is as mistaken as the widespread opinion that the Second Instance categorically confirmed the lower Instance and merely increased the penalty. As now in Rome, this was a singularity in the Italian penal code IPC , that is, of how to interpret aggravating circumstances. In most of those provisions a harsher penalty is imposed in those cases where there are personal damages, while in Switzerland a lesser penalty is contemplated if the consequences are less dire. Keeping in mind the lengthy latency of diseases caused by asbestos, this could occur at mid-century.

As a consequence, the lower court sentenced Schmidheiny for infringing safety requirements at workplaces IPC Art. The Court of Appeals, setting forth its reasons in exemplary fashion, dismissed those arguments, given that in the case of infringing safety requirements, the challenged paragraph constituted an aggravating circumstance and, consequently, the statute of limitations began running as of the date on which the dangerous behavior ended, that is, no later than the factory closures in As a consequence, the statute of limitations has run out on this offense.

The fifty-year or more statute of limitations is so extravagant that the second paragraph, which states the same thing in both cases, is considered an aggravating circumstance and is therefore time-barred for one of the provisions and, on the contrary, is a separate offense, and, consequently, not time-barred for the other the environmental catastrophe.

With this motivation, the Supreme Court has managed to avoid having to analyze other numerous errors committed in the appealed judgment. For example, it should be noted that Schmidheiny was accused of everything that has taken place since , on which date he was five years old; that the indictment was repeatedly amended, even with the active involvement of the court, something which is absolutely inadmissible in a state of law; or that the defense had no access to the files regarding cases if illness and death.

The Court of Cassation has likewise not had to speak to the extravagant assertion that Schmidheiny, through a media campaign to minimize the risks, led Italy to be one of the last countries in Europe to prohibit the processing of asbestos. Nor has it had to examine the unfettered extension of liabilities of a company to a single shareholder, much less busy itself with the disconcerting comparisons of the chief judge of the Court of Appeals, who compared the accused to Hitler.

With its decision, the Court of Cassation has released Italy from a presumable and disparaging defeat in Strasbourg. The fact that the attorney general and the Court of Cassation in Rome thus disapproved of both Instances supposes a stunning setback for Turin.

Instead of rectifying, attempts are being made in Turin to accuse Schmidheiny of voluntary manslaughter, by deeming that he has deliberately and intentionally killed hundreds of people. To restart a trial that was lost goes against human rights, even though this does not appear to be of concern to anybody.

Prime Minister Renzi, who intensely participates in the hate and smear campaigns against the accused, now even wants the State, that is to say the Government, to participate in the new prosecution as a victim and, therefore, as a civil party.

The very same State, let us take note, that never concerned itself with the hazards of asbestos. How far can the rights of the victims in a criminal trial be perverted! The Government, as a party to a criminal trial, would also suppose the end of judicial independence. Nor is it questioned in Italy that the justice system, which takes years to conclude urgent prosecutions such as those relating to child custody, and that in public surveys obtains the worst scores in all of Europe, does not skimp on gigantic resources to tackle a trial that will be of no help to anyone, much less to the victims of asbestos.

It has been the Schmidheiny indemnity fund that has thus far granted concrete aid to 1, victims. Martin Killias is a permanent guest professor at the University of St. He participated as an advisor to the Stefan Schmidheiny defense team. In this commentary he is speaking on his own behalf. As we know now, the illnesses caused by asbestos only manifest themselves many years -even decades- after exposure to the fibers. SEG was the family business group that had been dedicated, since the beginning of the 20th century, to producing construction materials made from asbestos cement.

It should be noted that SEG was a holding company; that is to say, it held shares in several other companies that were the ones that produced asbestos cement-based materials. In total, SEG was a minority shareholder in 19 out of the 20 companies where it was invested, each located in a different country.

The only company where SEG was a majority shareholder was Eternit Italia, and only between the years of and , when the company declared bankruptcy and closed. The plants were closed down because it was impossible to implement the necessary modifications to operate free of asbestos without losing productivity.

When Schmidheiny decided not to go back on his decision to replace asbestos in all the products manufactured by SEG, one of the costs was the bankruptcy of Eternit Italia. Once the company was declared insolvent, the receiver designated by the court took over the company, and SEG no longer was tied to its administration. The new owners continued using asbestos in their production lines, as its use was not yet prohibited in Italy.

The Eternit Napoli plant in Bagnoli was decontaminated and closed down on orders from the receiver. A few months after Stephan Schmidheiny took charge of SEG in , he organized a conference in Neuss in Germany with the managers of all the asbestos cement-producing companies of the group. At the conference, the managers were informed about scientific research on the risks related to the use of asbestos and corresponding preventative measures, and they were asked to put strict safety measures into practice.

By then, it was speculated that asbestos could cause a number of diseases, the most severe being mesothelioma, a type of cancer that manifests itself several decades after the patient has been exposed to asbestos dust. At the time, the predominant opinion of scientists and international entities, such as the International Labor Organization ILO , was that the risks associated with asbestos could be reduced to acceptable levels by implementing a series of preventative measures.

The latest edition of this document was published in Asbestos is now banned from building materials in much of the West, but is still being used as insulation in developing countries. The inhalation of asbestos fibres can cause lung inflammation and cancer, and symptoms do not tend to appear for many years. Eternit closed its Italian operations in , six years before asbestos was banned in Italy.

A statement on his behalf in said that risks related to asbestos were not well known at the time the plants were in operation. Schmidheiny took over the Swiss Eternit Group from his father in , while de Cartier de Marchienne was a shareholder and manager of Eternit in Italy in the early s.

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