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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Italian prosecutors demand prison for quake scientists

2012-09-26

ROME: Italian prosecutors on Tuesday requested prison sentences of four years each for seven scientists accused of underestimating the risks of an earthquake in L'Aquila in 2009 that killed 309 people.

I don't remember -- were Roman soothsayers executed for getting it wrong, back in the day, or was it understood that prediction is an inexact science?

The scientists are all members of a special committee set up to evaluate the risks of natural disasters, which held an emergency meeting in L'Aquila on May 31, 2009 -- six days before the fatal earthquake which devastated the city. The meeting was called following a series of small tremors and concluded that it was impossible to determine whether a bigger earthquake could follow, although it did call for strict adherence to anti-quake measures in the area.

Prosecutor Fabio Picuti said there had been "an incomplete, inept, unsuitable and criminally mistake analysis" made by the scientists. He said the statement issued by the committee before the earthquake had contained "banal, useless, self-contradictory and mistaken information."

Some of Italy's leading scientists are among the seven defendants, including Enzo Boschi, a former director of the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology, and Claudio Evo, a physics professor at Genoa University.

Picuti picked up on a phrase attributed to Boschi in which he reportedly said: "I would reject (the possibility) of an earthquake."

"People died because of this phrase," Picuti said.

Defense lawyers are expected to present their final arguments on October 9 and 10 and a verdict is due before October 23, Il Tempo daily reported.

Posted by:Steve White

#5 Concur P2K. We might use Pyongyang City as a model. Throw in a few gov't only ~~PX/BX~~ shopping centers and all should go quite well.

Posted by: Besoeker 2012-09-26 12:02

#4 ...I suspect a ~~detention~~ secure facility for government apparatchiks would be smaller and cost less, letting them consider everyone else outside the facility on 'house arrest'.

Posted by: Procopius2k 2012-09-26 11:43

#3 Scientists, doctors, teachers, clergymen, business owners...... can we not simply build detention centers for them?

Posted by: Besoeker 2012-09-26 09:17

#2 My first thought is that this sounds like what you would expect from the Pakis or other Muzzie geniuses.

And the convergence of the Socialist European and the Medieval Muzzies seems to continue apace. Is this an example of Blair's law?

Posted by: AlanC 2012-09-26 08:34

#1 It's not that it was an inexact science. It's that they neglected their duties.

"The basis of the charges is not that they didn't predict the earthquake. As functionaries of the state, they had certain duties imposed by law: to evaluate and characterize the risks that were present in L'Aquila. They were obligated to evaluate the degree of risk given all these factors, and they did not."

Posted by: gromky 2012-09-26 00:54

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