L’Aquila earthquake scientists win appeal

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/10/laquila-earthquake-scientists-win-appeal-seismologists

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A court has upheld the appeals of six scientists and an official against their convictions for having given criminally negligent reassurances to the population of the city of L’Aquila before it was devastated by an earthquake five years ago.

But the judges endorsed a conviction and two-year sentence passed on one of the defendants, Bernardo De Bernardinis, on a connected charge.

The announcement of the verdicts was met with cries of “Disgrace” from members of the public in court.

The original verdicts had sparked worldwide condemnation as scientists protested that it was impossible for even the most experienced seismologists to forecast an earthquake. The seven men – members of an official major risks committee – each faced six-year jail sentences on charges of multiple manslaughter and negligence leading to grievous bodily harm. They had also been ordered to pay more than €9m (£7m) in damages to survivors of the disaster, which left 309 people dead.

The trial arose from a statement issued after a meeting of the committee in L’Aquila on 31 March 2009, six days before the city and several nearby villages were devastated by the 6.3 magnitude earthquake. By then, a series of minor tremors had spread terror among the inhabitants of the area, which is high in the mountains of central Italy.

The prosecution claimed that the reassuring outcome of the meeting caused some of L’Aquila’s residents to stay indoors on the night of the disaster instead of seeking shelter outside, as they had been doing since the tremors began. The lower court judge concluded that 29 of the victims fatally changed their behaviour as a direct result of the committee’s reassurances.

But his verdict was deplored by scientists inside and outside Italy. The journal Nature called the sentence “ludicrous”.

Before retiring to consider their verdicts, the judges of the L’Aquila appeals court heard a dramatic final plea from one of the seismologists, Giulio Selvaggi. “I think there is nothing more important for a seismologist to do in a seismic country than to put him – or herself at the disposal of society to help understand what is happening. I went into the meeting on 31 March 2009 with that conviction and I would go back with it today,” he told the court.

L’Aquila has been hit by at least 10 earthquakes since medieval times and in the worst disaster, in 1786, more than 6,000 people lost their lives.