Ex Ilva, Gip of Potenza confirms seizure and transfer of trial from Taranto

The former Ilva plant in Taranto remains sequestered and the 'Ambiente Svenduto' trial on the crime of environmental disaster contested against the company owned by the Riva family remains in Potenza. These are the two cornerstones of the measure (preventive seizure order) taken by the gip of Potenza, Ida Iure, after the Court of Assize of Appeal of Taranto annulled the first-degree sentence (May 2021) with several convictions and transferred the trial to the Prosecutor's Office of Potenza for incompatibility. With the continuation of the seizure, however, nothing changes. The steel plant, where a second blast furnace was restarted on Tuesday, in the presence of Minister Adolfo Urso, continues to produce and there is no interruption of activity as there has been in recent years.

The resumption of the seizure was among the immediate measures that the gip had to take once the documents reached Potenza, under penalty of forfeiture after the Taranto Court of Assize Appeal's ruling. A sentence that, in addition to the convictions of the defendants, also meant that the confiscation of the plants, which would have been triggered after the Court of Cassation judgement, would have been revoked. But if the confirmation of the seizure with the appointment of judicial custodians - the same ones appointed by the Taranto gip in 2012 - was substantially predictable (and probably also expected), the fact that the gip decided to keep the trial in Potenza and not to open the negative conflict of attribution before the Court of Cassation, as proposed by the Lucania public prosecutor's office, the only one authorised to intervene after the trial left the Taranto site where it had reached the second level a few months ago, is important. "Contrary to what was opined by the prosecutor, the competence of the Court of Potenza should be affirmed," wrote the gip Iure.

In annulling the first instance sentence and transferring the proceedings to Potenza, the judges of the Taranto Court of Appeal highlighted the incompatibility that arose from the fact that two honorary magistrates were on duty in Taranto at the time of the pollution events contested in the 'Ambiente Svenduto' trial and then, after leaving office, they both joined the more than one thousand injured parties in the proceedings claiming direct damages. "Both honorary judges," writes the gip of Potenza, Iure, "have acted to obtain compensation for damages resulting from the unlawful conduct of the defendants in any capacity involved in the illicit activity carried out by Ilva both in their capacity as managers of the steel plant and as public officials who, in the exercise of their duties had made it possible for Ilva to continue producing and polluting. Both of them, notes the gip of Potenza, took action to obtain compensation for damages caused by criminal conduct that continued in Taranto from 1995 to 20 June 2013. Both of them', argued the gip regarding the incompatibility that caused the continuity of the trial in Taranto to lapse by moving it to Potenza, 'performed their duties as honorary judges at the Court of Taranto. Both were in service "at the time of the fact" having ceased to be members of the judicial order, the lawyer Giacovelli on 20.12.2015, Dr. Cassetta in the year 2005". For the gip, "having noted that the plea of lack of jurisdiction was promptly brought before the Court of Assizes of Taranto after the admission of the two constitutions (which makes irrelevant the still debated question whether the plea is functional or territorial in nature), the same must be considered well-founded in the light of the correct interpretation of Article 11 of the Code of Criminal Procedure". Among other things, notes the Judge of Potenza, Iure, "the Constitutional Court has already dealt with resolving the question raised in relation to the position of the honorary judge who was no longer in service at the time of the fact". It is for these reasons, therefore, that the trial of Ambiente Svenduto will restart from Potenza, where the Taranto Court of Assizes of Appeal has remitted the acts.

With regard to the confirmation of the seizure of the Taranto steel plants, the Potenza gip considers 'it is essential to avoid the worsening of the consequences of the negative impact on the constitutional assets that must be given maximum protection. It is clear that the criminal use of the plant for profit in defiance of even the agreements made to reduce the deadly impact of the processing can only be stopped by taking away the availability of the areas where the processing takes place that have led to the impairment of the environment, the health of workers and the resident population,' the gip writes again. Also because, he stressed, 'the extremely serious health situation of the population of Taranto has been ascertained due to exposure to industrial emissions'.

Legal sources, however, observe that on this specific point, the judge in Potenza essentially limited himself to confirming what was ordered in July 2012 by the Taranto gip, Patrizia Todisco, who, on the basis of the results of the Ambiente Svenduto investigation, ordered the sealing of the hot area of the factory, the most environmentally impactful due to emissions. But from 2012 to today, the legal sources note, the owner (Riva) who was charged with the unlawful conduct is no longer there, and the factory has not only been placed under commission by the state, but, importantly, also subjected, as a result of the AIA prescriptions, to a major environmental investment plan that has improved the situation. And also reduced, it is claimed, the consequences of emissions. Investments that involved covering the mineral parks, installing filters at the agglomeration plant and various, other interventions. Therefore, the comparison between 2012 and today does not hold up for legal sources. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that Ilva in extraordinary administration, the company that owns the plants leased to Acciaierie d'Italia and now about to be sold (the tender procedure is open), may soon file a petition to revoke the seizure decided by the gip of Potenza, highlighting what has been done from an environmental point of view over the last 12 years.