Italy's top court orders new trial in decades-old Eternit asbestos case

Italy's highest court has ordered a ‌new ​appeal trial for Swiss billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny over asbestos-related deaths at a factory he once owned in northern Italy, prolonging a legal battle that has already lasted two decades. The Court of Cassation ordered the retrial ‌late on Tuesday, the latest setback in efforts by campaigners to establish accountability for one of Italy's worst industrial disasters, which prosecutors said led to an estimated 3,000 deaths.

Detailed reasons for the decision were not immediately given, but lawyers representing victims said it appeared to reopen questions over the causal link between Schmidheiny's conduct ‌and the deaths. The 79-year-old businessman, who has denied wrongdoing, was found guilty in 2012 of negligence at his company's Italian factories in the ‌1970s and 80s, sentenced to 18 years in jail and ordered to pay millions of euros in fines and compensation.

The original conviction was overturned in 2014 because a court ruled that too much time had elapsed for the charge of environmental disaster to be applied. Prosecutors changed tack and sought to hold Schmidheiny responsible for individual deaths at the company's main ⁠Italian site -- Casale ​Monferrato, in the northwestern Piedmont region.

In ⁠2023, a court sentenced him to 12 years over 147 deaths, triggering further appeals that ultimately brought the case back to Italy's highest court, highlighting the country's notoriously slow-paced legal ⁠system. FEWER CASES CAN BE HEARD

The delays mean that an increasing number of deaths can no longer be tried because of Italy's statute of limitations, which times out various ​crimes, and lawyers said only 66 cases could still be considered at a subsequent trial. Prosecutors said inadequate safety measures at the company's Italian ⁠plants, which closed in 1986, caused thousands of cases of lung disease and other illnesses among workers and people living nearby, many of which resulted in death.

When the scandal first ⁠broke, ​Schmidheiny's spokesman said he had never played an operational role in the management of his Italian activities, adding that the group had only been a major shareholder in the unit for 10 out of its 80-year history. According to prosecutors, Eternit's products were used to pave streets and as roof ⁠insulation around its plants in northern and southern Italy, resulting in years of exposure for the unsuspecting local population.

Asbestos became popular from the late ⁠19th century onwards as a way to ⁠reinforce cement. But research later revealed that the inhalation of asbestos fibres can cause lung inflammation and cancer. It is now banned in much of the world. Asbestos-related diseases can take decades to emerge.

"Around 50 people a ‌year are still dying ‌in Casale Monferrato," former deputy mayor Gianni Crisafulli said.