Prosecutors want 6yrs in asbestos deaths

(ANSA) - Milan, March 16 - Milan prosecutors on Monday asked a court to sentence former Italcementi Group president Giampiero Pesenti to six years in prison for culpable homicide in the asbestos-related deaths of 30 workers at the company's Franco Tosi turbine manufacturing plant.
    The 30 workers died between 2006-2014 of mesothelioma, a malignant form of cancer caused by asbestos exposure, after working at the plant in the 1970s and 80s. Presenti, now 84, was a Tosi plant executive from 1973-1980.
    The prosecution argued that Pesenti failed to install adequate safety measures for workers at the plant in the 1970s, in spite of the fact that the correlation between asbestos and mesothelioma was already known at the time and that technology that would have prevented the cancer was available.
    Instead, "the workers labored in deficient and lacking hygienic conditions," the prosecution said. The prosecution said seven co-defendants, all of them former Italcementi managers, should be acquitted.