Top seismologist to be tried for manslaughter for failing to predict Italian earthquake that killed

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Daily Mail

Top seismologist to be tried for manslaughter for failing to predict Italian earthquake that killed 308 people
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:11 PM on 27th May 2011

Accusations of manslaughter against Italy's top seismologist for failing to predict a devastating natural disaster have been likened to a 'witch hunt' by leading geologists.

Enzo Boschi, president of Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), is now facing a trial - along with six others - for failing to predict an earthquake that killed 308 people in 2009.
The accusations were made by Italian Government officials, who say the scientists and technicians should have warned the pubic, it has been reported.

A spokesman for the U.S. Geological Society (USGS) told FoxNews.com: 'It has a medieval flavor to it -- like witches are being put on trial.'

Read more: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1391653/Italys-seismologist-tried-manslaughter-failing-predict-earthquake.html

[ZombieHorde]

1. Yikes! Interesting. nt

[Make7]

2. Did any of the psychics or palm readers in Italy predict that earthquake?

Why aren't the ones who failed to predict it on trial with the geologists? Don't people who can see the future have a moral obligation to warn others of upcoming disasters?
 

[Enrique]

3. i predict Italian seismologists will be predicting a lot more earthquakes after this n/t

[christx30]

6. They should move to the US

We treat scientists better here than they would in the same country that treated Galileo like dog crap.

[verges]

11. Yeah.

Acountry that tries (and too often succeeds in) teaching creationism in public schools.
A country where Presidential candidates feel thay have to distance themselves rom the concept of Global Warming!
We are so enlightened.

[christx30]

12. It's better than throwing

scientists in jail for absolutely no reason. We may not be perfect, but we are a whole heck of a lot better than those jokers.

[pnwmom]

21. I agree. And if we lived there the prosecutor could sue us

for criminal defamation for criticizing them, as in the Amanda Knox case. Not only is she facing additional years in prison for complaining about her police mistreatment, but her parents are, and the journalists who reported her claims are also being sued.

[WatsonT]

28. I'd rather have to fend off attempts at adding to the curriculum

nonsense like creationism than to live in a society where the law considers scientists to be murderers for being wrong.

[kiranon]

4. Mother Nature should be a co defendant. What nonsense. n/t

[alp227]

5. frivolous...i don't know what more to say about this n/t

[pnwmom]

17. A frivolous trial for manslaughter that could take two years to complete. n/t

[Muskypundit]

7. Really? REALLY??!?!?!!

This has to be an onion article.

[Lucky Luciano]

8. Yep...far too ridiculous. nt

[pnwmom]

16. Alas, it's anything but an Onion-type article. Even if it's in a tabloid.

Tells you something about the Italian justice system, doesn't it?

Here's another article from the American Association for the Advancement of Science:

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/05/italian-scientists-to-stand-trial.html?ref=hp

ROME—Enzo Boschi, the president of Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), will face trial on charges of manslaughter with six other scientists and technicians for failing to alert the residents of L'Aquila ahead of the devastating earthquake that struck the central Italian town on 6 April 2009, killing 308 people.

The seven experts sit on the nation's major risks committee, and were probed by L'Aquila prosecutors after members of the public complained that it was the committee's reassurances that persuaded them not to leave their homes ahead of the quake.

In addition to Boschi, those facing trial are: Franco Barberi, committee vice president; Bernardo De Bernardinis, at the time vice president of Italy's Civil Protection Department and now president of the country's Institute for Environmental Protection and Research; Giulio Selvaggi, director of the National Earthquake Centre; Gian Michele Calvi, director of the European Centre for Training and Research in Earthquake Engineering; Claudio Eva, an earth scientist at the University of Genoa; and Mauro Dolce, director of the office of seismic risk at the Civil Protection Department.

The seven were placed under investigation almost a year ago, and today L'Aquila Judge Giuseppe Romano Gargarella announced that they will be tried. According to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Gargarella said that the seven defendants had supplied "imprecise, incomplete and contradictory information," in a press conference following a meeting held by the committee 6 days before the quake. In doing so, they "thwarted the activities designed to protect the public," the judge said.

SNIP

[LibertyLover]

26. Sadly, no, this is not a joke -

the Italian justice system is that wacky. And it takes some of the interest away from Silvio at the same time.

[progressoid]

9. Whaaaa???

[Beartracks]

10. Taken to task by politicians who don't understand science?

We know the type: the kind who claim that snow in winter -- of all the weird things! -- means there is no climate change. :eyes:

------------------------------

[pnwmom]

13. Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito's prosecutions were based on a psychic's claims.

So this isn't so surprising.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/masonic-theory-that-put-knox-in-the-dock-981759.html

Mr Mignini decided only a few days after Meredith died that the murder was the culmination of an orgy in which Amanda, Raffaele and one other person were involved. And in court on 19 October he explained in more detail what he meant.

The murder, Il Tempo newspaper reported him telling the court, “was premeditated and was in addition a ‘rite’ celebrated on the occasion of the night of Hallowe’en. A sexual and sacrificial rite ... In the intention of the organisers, the rite should have occurred 24 hours earlier” – on Hallowe’en itself – “but on account of a dinner at the house of horrors, organised by Meredith and Amanda’s Italian flatmates, it was postponed for one day. The presumed assassins contented themselves with the evening of 1 November to perform their do-it-yourself rite, when for some hours it would again be the night of All Saints.”

SNIP

Given such a weighty consensus, the outside world would be forgiven for sorrowfully shaking its head at the terrible things young people get up to these days. One would take for granted that Mr Mignini must have excellent sources – witness testimony, forensic findings, even confessions – for his shocking description.

The last place you would look for such sources, however, is in a conspiracy theorist’s blog. Yet that is where the theory of the sacrificial rite finds its fullest expression. In a blog posted last August, Gabriella Carlizzi, a prolific Roman blogger, claimed that Meredith’s murder had been ordered by the dark masters of an esoteric Masonic sect, the Order of the Red Rose, to which she thinks both Meredith and Amanda may have belonged.


_______________________________

Note: It turns out that this same Carlizzi (a woman with self-proclaimed psychic abilities) had provided "information" to the same prosecutor, Mignini, in the trials related to the "Monster of Florence" case -- in which he is now appealing his conviction for prosecutorial misconduct, while being allowed to wreak the same kind of havoc on the Kercher murder case.

[mainer]

19. Fascinating. Italian "justice" is just plain cracked.

I never thought Amanda Knox was guilty. And the Monster of Florence case is a tragic miscarriage of justice.

[dballance]

14. You Can't Predict Earthquakes - WTF?

We are so far from being able to predict earthquakes this makes no sense.

[Tanelorn]

15. Simpson's episode 'Bart's Comet'

Moe: Let's go burn down the observatory, so this'll never
happen again! 

[DRex]

-delete-

[DRex]

18. lol! Spot on! nt

[SkyDaddy7]

20. Amanda Knox's life was ruined by these IDIOTS who allow...

a womanizing asshole & the Mafia to run their country while they conduct witch hunts on the innocent! There will be a HUGE "Brain Drain" from Italy if this crap goes through!

[pnwmom]

22. Did you hear about this, SkyDaddy7?

While this seems positive, my concern is that she could now get caught up in some kind of political battle.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1181189

[SkyDaddy7]

23. WOW! No, I had not heard about this!

Thank you so much for the info...I sure hope she can get out of there very soon! I feel so sorry for her & her family.

Thank-you!!! :hi:

[and-justice-for-all]

24. That is just fucking stupid...nt

[marasinghe]

25. now if we can just add the climate change denying scientists to that indictment ....

(just kidding)

[WatsonT]

27. This will likely cause 2 things to happen

1) discourage people from becoming seismologists (not like it's the best paying or most prestigious job to begin with) and 2) encourage existing ones to predict earthquakes constantly (hefty penalty for a false negative but it seems there are no penalties for false positives).

This will somehow make Italians safer.

Yep.