An Italian judge sent shockwaves through the scientific world on Monday when he sentenced seven of the country’s leading experts on natural disasters to six years each for giving false assurances before the earthquake that hit the city of L’Aquila in 2009.
More than 300 people died after a 6.3-magnitude tremor hit the central Abruzzo region. The earthquake wrecked L’Aquila’s historic centre, injured more than 1,000 people and left tens of thousands homeless.
The seven defendants, who belonged to the National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks, were accused of offering an unjustifiably optimistic assessment to the local population a week before the disaster. By then, the area had been hit by some 400 tremors over a period of four months and a local researcher had warned of the risk of a major earthquake, largely on the basis of abnormal radon emissions.
But after an extraordinary meeting of the commission in L’Aquila, one of the experts told a press conference that the situation was “normal” and even “favourable” because potentially destructive energy was being released through the tremors. The prosecution, which brought charges of multiple manslaughter, maintained that lives could have been saved had people not been persuaded by the assurances to remain in the area.
The sentences handed out by judge Marco Billi were higher than those demanded by the prosecution, which had asked for the accused to be given four years each. The judge also imposed lifetime bans from holding public office and ordered the defendants to pay compensation of €7.8m (£6.4m).
Marcello Petrelli, a lawyer for one of the experts, called the outcome of the trial “astounding and incomprehensible”. In Italy, convictions are not considered definitive until after an appeal, so it is unlikely that any of the defendants will go to jail immediately.
But the sentences are expected to cause uproar among scientists worldwide. Several international bodies had warned that a guilty verdict could deter scientists from advising governments in future.
Enzo Boschi, the former president of Italy’s National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology, said he was “dejected and in despair”. He said he had been convinced that he would be acquitted, “because I have never reassured anyone. I defy anyone to find in writing or speech, on television or elsewhere a reassurance by me concerning the Aquila earthquake.”
Luciano Maiani, the incumbent president of the Major Risks Commission, said the verdict marked “the death of the services provided to the state by professors and professionals. It is impossible to supply the state with advice in a professional and composed way under this crazy judicial and media pressure. This does not happen in any other country in the world.”
Giampaolo Giuliani, the researcher who became the “Cassandra” of the disaster after his warnings were ignored, said he had expected lighter sentences.
“I do not derive any pleasure [from the outcome]”, Giuliani said. “No conviction can repay us for what happened.”
source – The Guardian
An Italian physicist handed a six-year jail sentence for giving falsely reassuring statements over an earthquake has condemned as “medieval” the court that convicted him.
Claudio Eva, who was sentenced on Monday along with five other scientists and a government official over the earthquake in 2009 that killed more than 300 people and levelled the city of L’Aquila, said the verdict was an “eye for an eye”.
The ruling by a court in the shattered city, which defied the commonly held view that earthquakes cannot be predicted, has prompted outrage from the world’s scientific community.
“It was a very Italian and medieval decision,” said Eva, 74, who added he had received messages of support from colleagues in the UK, America and Europe. “The judge was local, the prosecutor was local and the public were local – which judge would not have been persuaded by the atmosphere?” he told the Guardian.
Fellow expert Enzo Boschi – also sentenced – who was head of Italy’s national geology and vulcanology institute in 2009, compared himself to Galileo, the Italian scientist who was tried by the Vatican in 1633 for claiming the Earth revolved around the sun.
On Tuesday, Luciano Maiani, head of the Italian commission that monitors seismic risk, resigned, saying: “I don’t see the conditions are there for working serenely.” His deputy also quit.
“From today on, it will be very difficult to appear in public to speak about seismic activity in Italy,” said Stefano Gresta, the current head of the geology and vulcanology institute. “From what I hear colleagues saying, no one wants to join commissions,” said Eva.
“This verdict could lead to the continuous raising of alarms in Italy since there are so many seismic zones here,” said Alessandra Stefano, a lawyer representing Gian Michele Calvi, one of the experts convicted.
“The risk is of confirming the principle that no doubt is permitted in any scientific evaluation,” said Italy’s environment minister, Corrado Clini, on Tuesday.
The scientists sentenced – who represent the cream of Italy’s earthquake experts – formed part of the seismic activity committee, known as the Major Risks Commission, in 2009. They were summoned six days before the 6 April quake by Italy’s civil protection agency to consider a series of tremors in the L’Aquila area.
Prosecutors alleged they gave “incomplete, imprecise and contradictory” information on the dangers locals faced.
One of those convicted, the former deputy civil protection chief Bernardo Bernardinis, who organised the meeting, told journalists scientists had told him “the situation was favourable”.
He was also quoted as advising locals, before the meeting, to relax with a glass of good red wine. “That’s just not true,” he said on Tuesday. “A journalist asked me if he should have a glass of wine while awaiting the end of the meeting and I agreed.”
Lawyers now await the judge’s explanation of the sentencing – expected in 90 days – to find out if the group were convicted not just for their false assurances, but for actively playing down the risk that a quake was on the way.
The local official Stefania Pezzopane, who backed the verdict, claimed that the experts had been called in by the civil protection agency specifically to reassure people. Scientists, she said, “should be scientists and not buffoons”.
“They reassured us and then we died in our homes,” said a resident, Domenico Di Giamberlardino.
But Eva insisted neither he nor his colleagues had given any reassurances in their brief, 40-minute meeting. “We always maintained it was not possible to predict or exclude an earthquake,” he said.
With two appeals permitted under Italian law, the scientists will not be going to jail immediately, but Eva said his morale was devastated by the verdict. “I do not feel guilty from a scientific point of view,” he said.
“In court the prosecutor referred to the failure in predicting hurricane Katrina, but it is a lot easier to predict a hurricane than an earthquake,” he said.
L’Aquila, which still lies in ruins, was also damaged by earthquakes in 1349, 1461 and 1703. “An earthquake is like an assassin that returns to the scene of a crime after centuries,” said Eva, “but you can never tell when.” – source
Poveracci. Sempre a lamentarsi.
Ma se invece di rassicurare erano stati zitti probabilmente il terremoto, che comunque ci sarebbe stato e sarebbe stato imprevedibile, avrebbe fatto meno morti.
Perchè chi è abituato al terremoto, e all’Aquila lo sono, sa cosa si deve fare quando arriva. Mettersi al sicuro.
Ecco, bastava semplicemente il silenzio per evitare problemi.
E invece no, la scienza deve dare rassicurazioni. Anche quando non è in grado.
Così all’Ilva non succede niente.
Così alla Breda per trent’anni gli operai (ma non i capi) si sono ammalti.
Continua….
A great idea. I propose that we now prosecute all politicians and business leaders who fail to warn us that their policies will not only fail, but result in public misery. But we’d better invest heavily in new prisons to handle the overflow.
Io veramente sostengo da tempo che un po’ di carcere preventivo a chi intende impegnarsi politicamente farebbe solo bene.
In alternativa, per tutti quegli amministratori che si mettono alla guida di un qualsiasi ente pubblico dovrebbe essere previsto che se non riescono a mantenerne integro (o incrementare) il patrimonio senza chiedere ulteriore entrate ai cittadini si facciano carico personalmente delle differenze.
A me le entrate non riesce di aumentarle.
😉
Isn’t this the same country where Galileo was imprisoned and required to renounce his scientific discoveries? At least in that instance the Church was to blame. Has the Vatican taken a position on earthquakes?