Italian court to deliver verdict in asbestos poisoning trial

Feb 13, 2012, 8:25 GMT

Rome - A court in Italy was expected later Monday to deliver a verdict in a trial in which a Swiss billionaire and a Belgian baron are charged with responsibility for the asbestos-poisoning deaths of hundreds of people.

Relatives of the alleged victims and environmental activists had begun arriving at the courthouse in Turin where the verdict was expected.

The trial against Swiss Stephan Schmidheiny, the former owner of the Eternit construction firm, and Jean-Louis Marie Ghislain de Cartier de Marchienne, a top shareholder from Belgium, ended last July.

Proceedings which began in December 2009 involved a mass civil action in which some 6,000 people sought damages over the deaths of around 3,000 people who worked at or lived near Eternit's plants in Italy where it operated in the 1970s and 80s.

Prosecutors have requested for each of the accused the maximum sentence of 12 years imprisonment and eight additional years on the grounds that asbestos can trigger health ill-effects decades after exposure.