Swiss industrialist partly cleared by Italian court in asbestos death
The acquittal of Schmidheiny by Italy's top court in a major case in 2014 caused a public outrage.
Keystone / Alessandro Di Marco
A court in Italy has reduced a prison sentence against the Swiss entrepreneur, Stephan Schmidheiny, over the death of a worker in an asbestos cement factory.
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Ex-dono da Eternit tem pena reduzida pela justiça italiana
Judges of the Turin appeals court on Thursday announced they decided to lower the sentence to 20 months.
Schmidheiny’s defence lawyers said the ruling was a partial acquittal but they wanted to see Schmidheiny’s name fully cleared by Italy’s Supreme Court.
In a first instance, the Swiss industrialist and former major shareholder in Eternit Italia was found guilty of negligent homicide in 2019 and given a four-year jail sentence.
The prosecution alleged the deaths of two people were linked to an asbestos cement factory operated by the company, Eternit, in a village outside Turin. The factory had been closed in 1982.
Specifically, the case involved a former employee of Eternit Italia and a local resident. The man worked in a factory and died of the dust lung disease caused by asbestos. The woman succumbed to lung cancer.
Major trial
Another trial, which lasted from 2009 to 2014, had ended with an acquittal for Schmidheiny. Italy’s highest court in May 2018, rejected the accusation of deliberate action as legally untenable.
The Eternit SEG group led by Schmidheiny was a major shareholder of Eternit Italia from 1973 until its bankruptcy in 1986.
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