Asbestos Victims Families Casale's Videos (Asbestos in the dock) - Asbestos in the dock

Mal d'amianto

2012-04-12T14:13:34.827Z

un reportage di Valentina Guzzardo, Monica Sansone, Chiara Romanello e Diego Giuliani

ADAO Interview with Emmanuelle Schouten, Belgian Attorney, from the Eternit Trial

2012-04-12T09:31:26.302Z

Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) Interview with Emmanuelle Schouten, Belgian Attorney, who discusses the Eternit asbestos trial and verdict

Long-awaited Eternit asbestos verdict expected soon

2012-02-15T15:21:18.403Z

Enrico Bona, Euronews

Will the judgement be guilty or not guilty in the ‘asbestos trial’ of the owners of the company Eternit, in Casale Monferrato, Italy?

After a two-year trial, a verdict is finally expected to be delivered by a court in Turin, in Europe’s biggest environmental health case.

Two asbestos industrialists face a possible 20 years in prison if convicted on charges they failed to protect workers of their company.

Nicola Pondrano, an ex-Eternit worker, said: “We call it dust in Casale… and we say: ‘I’ve got the dust in my lungs.’”

Raffaele Guariniello, a Turin public prosecutor, said: “Crimes… travel at the speed of light. The justice system… still moves carefully.”

Romana Blasotti Pavesi, President of Asbestos Victims’ Families in Casale, said: “I try very hard not to think about it. When my daughter died, I found I couldn’t cry any more.”

One of the biggest environmental cases ever to come to trial in Europe began around two years ago in the northern Italian city of Turin.

An asbestos cement multinational called Eternit was in the dock – or rather, its last two owners were. Eternit has factories in Italy, Switzerland, France and South America.

Swiss billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny and Belgian industry baron Louis de Cartier de Marchienne were accused of violating safety rules, ignoring workers’ health. The two risked 20 years in prison if convicted.

The day of judgement: February 13, 2012. If found guilty in Italy, prosecution could go ahead in other countries.

Public Prosecutor Guariniello said: “The big choice made was to try to establish responsibility for fundamental decisions in the company. The people who decided what to spend, how to spend it, what to do… were not Italians. They were first the Belgians and then the Swiss.”

Astolfo Di Amato, defence lawyer for industrialist Stephan Schmidheiny, insisted that: “When Stephan Schmidheiny became the company’s chief executive in 1976, its branches in Italy had turned zero profit, and it had invested what was an enormous sum at the time – 73 billion lire – on safety.”

Between 1906 and 1986, the city of Casale Monferrato, not far from Turin, was home to the biggest asbestos cement factory in Europe. It contributed to the region’s economic development. But the people who worked here paid a terrible price. And they are still paying it.

Since 1947, 1,800 have died from pleural mesothelioma, an untreatable cancer. It did not only attack the workers in Eternit but also the population who had never set foot in the factory.

Bruno Pesce, head of an association fighting on behalf of former Eternit workers and their families, in an impeccably organised and austere office said: “All these white files are on the workers who died. The pink ones are other citizens of Casale, unfortunately also dead from mesothelioma; the green ones are those still living but who have the cancer. The yellow ones are for all the former Eternit workers who are ill.”

Nicola Pondrano, the former Eternit worker, and also head of the CGL Union of Casale, said: “When Eternit closed down, declaring operations unviable in 1986, the workers were right alongside Bruno and me – not against us: with us.”

Bruno Pesce said: “In the years following the closure, the fight kept spreading throughout the territory, to go after three objectives: justice, rehabilitation and health research.”

Today, Casale counts an average of around fifty asbestos victims per year, most of them aged between 40 and 60, people who breathed in the fibres before the factory closed.

Dottoressa Daniela De Giovanni, oncologist at the Santo Spirito Hospital of Casale, said: “The inhabitants of Casale are afraid of becoming ill. That adds psychological suffering to physical suffering. It’s the fear that the same illness that struck a friend, a parent or a loved one can strike us too.”

Romana Pavesi, the victims’ association chair, lost her husband – an Eternit worker – and her sister

La lettura della sentenza Eternit

2012-02-15T10:27:35.829Z

RaiNews24

Il Tribunale di Torino ha condannato a 16 anni di carcere ciascuno il miliardario svizzero Stephan Schmidheiny e il barone belga Louis De Cartier alla fine

del processo Eternit. I due rispondevano di disastro doloso e rimozione di…

Negligent company bosses to appeal Italy asbestos verdict

2012-02-15T10:21:27.974Z

Enrico Bona, EURONEWS
Company owners convicted of causing over 3,000 asbestos-related deaths in Italy say they will appeal the verdict.
In a court in the northern Italian city of Turin, the Swiss billionaire former owner of Eternit, Stephan Schmidheiny, was found guilty of negligence and sentenced to 16 years in prison even though he did not appear.
Public prosecutor for Turin Raffaele Guariniello was happy with the ruling: “This verdict gives us all the right to dream, not only in Italy, but all over the world. The right to dream about the fact that justice can be done and must be done,” Guariniello said.
Victims in other countries may feel some hope following the Italian verdict.
The court handed down the same 16 year sentence to a Belgian aristocrat – the now-bankrupt company’s largest shareholder.
Bruno Pesce coordinator of a victims’ group called ‘Vertenza Amianto’ said: “This is a big change. Even a very powerful person, or a very important person can cause thousands of deaths. Should we ignore it?”
Romana Blasotti Pavesi, president of the asbestos families victims association said: “We realise that it’s not over, there still are sick people and victims. The clearing has not been completed yet. The research is uncertain so we must go on.”
Eternit had employees at four plants in Italy, where they did unprotected work with asbestos until the 1980s.
The verdict in this Eternit trial paves the way for a second trial, the so-called “Eternit-2”. The panel in Turin has already begun working on it.
The defendants will be the same, but this new trial aims to hold them accountable for the more recent deaths caused by asbestos.