Italian asbestos catastrophe: The Swiss industrialist Stephan Schmidheiny between guilt and atonement
The industrialist has been defending himself against serious criminal charges for twenty years – now a court of first instance has sentenced him to twelve years in prison for negligent homicide. Schmidheiny doesn’t want to accept that.
At that time (recording from 1997) his world was still in order. Stephan Schmidheiny has been fighting allegations of asbestos contamination in Italy since 2004.
Bild: Martin Ruetschi / Keystone
Why has the Turin public prosecutor’s office been chasing the Swiss industrialist Stephan Schmidheiny through the Italian courts for twenty years? Is it “maliciousness”, as a statement written by Schmidheiny’s lawyers in relation to the allegations against the now 76-year-old heir to the Eternit company suggests?
