Italy's highest appeals court was asked Wednesday by prosecutors to cancel an 18-year prison sentence against Swiss tycoon Stephan Schmidheiny, the only person convicted in an asbestos environmental disaster.
Schmidheiny, the former owner of two asbestos cement plants which the now-defunct Eternit ran in Italy, had originally been convicted in June 2013 of failing to ensure adequate safety measures.
Prosecutors said that the case against Schmidheiny was not supported by law, dealing a blow to victims who say that the Eternit plants were responsible for more than 2,000 deaths.
A decision by the Court of Cassation is expected next week on the request by the prosecution.
The initial sentence had been cheered by a victims' group that appeared Wednesday outside the Cassation Court in central Rome with a banner demanding "Justice for the victims of Eternit".
About 150 people were among the group, many from Casale Monferrato in Piedmont, and others from different regions of northern Italy as well as people from Switzerland and Brazil.
Their leader Romana Blasotti, 85, lost five family members to asbestos-related diseases, which often takes many years to appear. One of the most common diseases, mesothelioma, can take decades after contamination to make itself known, making liability hard to prove.
"We want justice, and we believe that we will have it, after 35 years of struggle," said Blasotti, whose husband died in 1983, followed by a sister, a niece, a cousin and a daughter.
"When we started our battle, we knew we had to do it for our young people...but we did not succeed. The death rate in Casale continues at a rate of 50 to 60 deaths per year," she said.
Asbestos-linked tumours have been reported among Eternit staff, their families and people living near the factories affected by asbestos dust in the air, while hundreds more are ill.
Employees and their families have long claimed that Eternit did little or nothing to protect its workers and residents living around its factories from the dangers of asbestos.
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