Italy court orders toxic steelworks retrial

ROME - An Italian appeals court scrapped the convictions of the former owners of one of Europe's largest steelworks for failing to curb toxic emissions, ordering a retrial, lawyers told AFP.

Brothers Fabio and Nicola Riva were sentenced to 20 and 22 years, respectively, in 2021 by a court in the southern city of Taranto after years of the plant's non-compliance with environmental controls.

But the Rivas' legal team appealed, arguing there was a conflict of interest in trying the case in Taranto, where judges may feel directly affected by the vast plant, which runs along one side of the coastal city.

The objection was accepted by an appeals court, which ordered a retrial in Potenza, a city in another region in southern Italy, lawyer Pasquale Annicchiarico told AFP.

Charges against the Rivas included conspiracy to commit environmental disaster and wilful failure to take precautions in the workplace.

Twenty-six people were convicted in the original trial, including Nichi Vendola, the former president of Italy's Puglia region where the plant is located.

Prosecutors have previously attributed at least 400 premature deaths to toxins, including carcinogenic particles, that spewed across Taranto.

"Hundreds of relatives of pollution victims and cancer patients will now be forced to begin the judicial process again," said consumer association Codacons, which represents some of the civil parties.

Environmental associations said the retrial meant there was a high risk the case would expire under the statute of limitations before justice could be seen to be done.

The steelworks, which date from the 1960s, have been dogged by legal and political battles since 2012 over killer emissions.

ArcelorMittal, the world's second-largest steelmaker, took control in 2018, but the site -- now on the edge of bankruptcy -- was placed under state supervision earlier this year.

Local associations monitoring toxin levels say the level of pollution is still unacceptably high and a 2021 study found a rise in birth defects and cancers in children born or living near the plant.

Steel industry emissions are also one of the big drivers of climate change, with the steel manufacturing sector responsible for some seven percent of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

Italy is the second-largest steel producer in Europe and experts say maintaining Taranto's coal blast furnaces is not a viable option, but Rome wants to keep it operating to safeguard some 10,700 jobs.