A Swiss billionaire has been sentenced to 12 years in jail on aggravated manslaughter charges connected to the deaths of hundreds of people due to asbestos exposure, in what has been hailed as the most significant trial in Italy over workplace deaths.
Stephan Schmidheiny, an industrialist and former main shareholder in the cement production company Eternit Italia, was sentenced by a court in Novara after being found guilty of causing the death of 392 people in Casale Monferrato, the Piedmont town that until 1986 was home to the largest of Eternit Italia’s six factories.
Of the victims, 60 were factory workers while the rest were living in the town or surrounding area.
Eternit’s factories had used asbestos, which was once considered the miracle mineral because of its durability and resistance to flames, to strengthen cement during the 1970s and 1980s.
Schmidheiny, 73, had managed the plant in Casale Monferrato from 1976 until its closure.
In addition, judges ordered him to pay €50m (£43m) in provisional damages to Casale Monferrato’s local authority as well as €30m to the Italian state and €500m to a local association for relatives of victims of asbestos.
Schmidheiny, rather than the company, was tried because according to Italian law, the owner of a firm is deemed responsible in the event of workplace accidents or deaths.
Astolfo Di Amato, Schmidheiny’s lawyer, told the Adnkronos news agency that he would appeal, adding that he was already “very pleased” that the court’s manslaughter verdict meant his client could not be considered an “intentional murderer”.
The prosecutor Gianfranco Colace, who had called for a life sentence, argued that Schmidheiny was aware that asbestos killed, but “continued in his conduct”.
Among the 392 victims was Rosa Grangia, who died aged 76 in 2004, almost two decades after the factory closed. Grangia lived in a hamlet close to Casale Monferrato that was about 3.5km (2.2 miles) away from the plant. She died of cancer six months after being diagnosed.
Her son Marco Scagliotti said: “There is one road between our hamlet and Casale Monferrato, which people use several times a day to go to school, work or shopping, and you would have to pass by the factory each time.”
Scagliotti recalled the early 1970s, when Eternit was a source of pride for the town. “People would enter competitions to work there,” he said. “Friends and neighbours worked in the factory, it was a huge part of our lives. Most of those who I knew worked there are now dead.”
The factory’s waste was crushed outside, meaning asbestos dust would be blown across the town.
Scagliotti said doctors began to notice a rise in the frequency of pleural mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer caused by exposure to asbestos, in the late 1970s. Often symptoms of the illness do not manifest for many years. About 50 new cases are detected in Casale Monferrato each year.
Eternit SEG, led by Schmidheiny, was a leading shareholder in Eternit Italia until its bankruptcy in 1986.
Massimiliano Quirico, the director of the website Sicurezza e Lavoro (safety and work), said: “The most important trial over workplace deaths in Italy has concluded in Novara. It is an important signal that could give impetus to other workplace trials and to continued remediation over asbestos.”
