Tainted blood defendants acquitted

(ANSA) - Naples, March 25 - All 10 defendants in a trail into tainted blood that allegedly caused a string of deaths in the 1990s were acquitted by a Naples court on Monday.
    The defendants include former health minister Duilio Poggiolini, at the time director general of the health ministry's pharmaceutical service, and the former managers and technicians of the Marcucci Group.
    Former health minister Poggiolini was among those on trial in connection with the distribution of infected blood from which hundreds of people contracted AIDS and hepatitis in the '80s and '90s.
    Poggiolini, one of the protagonists of the Clean Hands corruption probes at the beginning of the 90s, was accused along with the executives of the Marcucci group and other defendants of criminal negligence in allowing tainted blood into the national blood transfusion circuit.