A court in L'Aquila has upheld a
ruling that effectively said that seven young people who were
among the 308 victims of the April 6, 2009, earthquake in the
central Italian city were at fault, Abruzzo daily 'Il Centro'
reported on Monday.
The court confirmed a previous decision regarding a civil suit
made in 2022 that said the premier's office was not to blame for
the deaths of the students and ordered their relatives to pay
around 14,000 euros in legal costs on the grounds that the
victims' imprudent conduct has been a factor in their deaths,
according to the report.
It is the latest in a series of controversial rulings regarding
the quake.
A suit for millions of euros in damages presented by some of the
relatives of 24 people who died in a building in the centre of
the Abruzzo capital reduced the compensation for similar
reasons.
The judge said these people should have left their
accommodation, rather than staying inside, after two strong
tremors, one at 23:00 and the other at 1am, before the deadly
quake hit at 3:32.
As a result, it said that the victims had a share of the blame.
This is a moot point as as experts had played down fears about a
possible disaster during seismic activity in the run-up to it..
In that case the victims' relatives had sued the heirs of the
building's constructor, who has since died, due to
irregularities in how it was built and the interior ministry and
the transport and infrastructure ministry, and the city council
for failing to conduct the proper oversight.
Seven members of the Major Risks Prevention Commission were
convicted over the information people received before the quake,
but those rulings were all subsequently quashed, except for that
of Bernardo De Bernardinis, former vice-president of Civil
Protection Agency's technical department, whose conviction was
upheld by the supreme court, while the term was reduced.
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