A court in Italy has found Swiss industrialist Stephan Schmidheiny, along with his Belgian business partner, guilty of the deaths of hundreds of workers.
Convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Turin on Monday, the two men were each sentenced to serve 16 years in prison. In addition, they will have to pay millions of euros in punitive damages.
Schmidheiny and Jean-Louis Marie Ghislaine De Cartier were the majority shareholders in the Eternit Genova company, which owned four asbestos factories in Italy.
According to the court, more than 3,000 people died from the consequences of asbestos dust in those factories. Schmidheiny and Cartier were accused of knowing about the dangers of asbestos but not taking the necessary measures to protect those who came into contact with it.
The Swiss-based construction company was blamed for spreading asbestos fibres over much of northern Italy by allowing dust from the production of roofing materials and pipes to blow around.
The prosecution had called for 20-year sentences, but the judge issued somewhat more lenient prison terms.
In a statement following the ruling, a spokesman for Schmidheiny announced his client would appeal the verdict. He described the ruling as “completely incomprehensible”.
The hearing on Monday attracted hordes of journalists as well as several mayors from around Italy. Neither Schmidheiny nor Cartier were present.
More to come.)
The “wonder mineral”, as it used to be known, reached its peak in the late 1970s, with around 3,000 products using asbestos on the market.
Switzerland was an important asbestos centre. The Schmidheiny family’s Eternit Group had its headquarters at Niederurnen, in canton Glarus.
In its heyday, the holding Schmidheiny Amiantus controlled factories in 16 countries, employing 23,000 people.
The Eternit offices also housed, from 1929, SAIAC, the cartel of cement-asbestos producers.
Eternit had two sites in Switzerland: Niederurnen and in Payerne.