INFORMATION ON THE STATUS OF THE ORDINARY TRIAL.JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF CASSATION, PLAINTIFFS EXPECTATIONS.
A - POSITION OF THE DEFENDANTS AFTER THE TRIAL OF FIRST INSTANCE (ORDINARY) BEFORE THE MILAN COURT – PENAL SECTION 5 (PRESIDENT DR. MOCCIA – OUTCOME OF THE SENTENCE OF APRIL 16, 2004, DEPOSITED ON JULY 15, 2004).
In the first instance and after an extremely long debate lasting approximately forty hearings, all the defendants were convicted: SANDRO GUALANO (ENAV) sentenced to 6 years and 6 months in jail; FRANCESCO FEDERICO (ENAC) sentenced to 6 years and 6 months in jail; PAOLO ZACCHETTI (ENAV) sentenced to 8 years in jail; VINCENZO FUSCO (ENAC - Linate Airport Manager) sentenced to 8 years in jail.
Besides being convicted and charged with court costs, the defendants and civilian managers (ENAV and ENAC) were charged with paying damages to the civilian parties, net of the advance payments received as provisional amounts or actual offers.
The appeals trial was held before the Milan Appeals Court, penal section 4 (President Caccamo, Dr. Beretta, promoter and writer of the sentence).
The appeal began in the fall of 2005 and concluded on July 7, 2006, after many hearings and an official examination of the tapes (sequestered) of the conversations between Air-Traffic Controllers and the pilots.
Expert testimony proved the groundlessness and speciousness of the objections raised particularly by the defense attorneys of Zacchetti and Gualano concerning the unreliability and regularity of the translation and transcription (made by Commander Pica, the Technical Consultant of Public Prosecutor Gravina) of TBT conversations, provided on diskette to the defense when the documents were deposited, once investigations were concluded (art. 415 bis Code of Penal Procedures).
To be scrupulous, the Appeals Court decided to hear Commander Pica again, who confirmed what had already been amply documented in the thick files of case papers concerning the reconstruction of the accident, once again showing the Court the films and all the assessments made to demonstrate the condition of serious fault and abandonment of the Linate Airport, on that tragic morning of October 8, 2001, and before that date.
Preliminarily, the Territorial Court, as had already occurred before Investigating Magistrate Petromer and the Court, rejected all objections of alleged violation of the rights of the defense. The Court, subsequently entering in merit of the matter, disregarded the motivations of Gualano’s defense attorneys, confirming the conviction of the defendant, which is the highest in the appeals trial.
The Appeals Judge also confirmed the co-responsibility of Air Traffic Controller Zacchetti, whose sentence was reduced to 3 years and entirely remitted.
The Milan Court explained the air traffic controller’s reduction of the sentence as follows:
“In the chain of situations, procedures, and instruments that must ensure the safety of the flight, the air traffic controller is the last and, therefore, weakest link if there is a lack of adequate support destined to limit the risk of error.
Compared to the enduring negligent behavior of Gualano (and Marzocca, the General Manager) concerning replacement of the radar, compared to the facts regarding the maintenance of the markings, which are also the result of protracted negligence, compared to the general bad management of flight infrastructures and mapping by other ENAV offices (CAV Linate, Regional Coordination, Traffic Office), which also continued over time, Zacchetti’s error took place in a few seconds, the time of the action that Article 133 of the Penal Code indicates as an evaluation criterion of the seriousness of the fact.
Zacchetti must therefore be judged less harshly than those who had greater opportunities to ensure flight safety; however, it must be said that his failure to stop the Cessna was a glaring blunder.
The same Public Prosecutor concluded his closing speech in the first instance with a request for a sentence of three years and ten months that clearly indicate the different position and responsibility compared to the other defendants, due to their positions of greater responsibility and related authority.”
The Territorial Court unexpectedly upheld the appeals of Fusco and Federico based on the argument that a higher authority above the two defendants was at fault (even though the first was Linate Airport Manager and the second was Area Manager of the three main airports of the Lombardy Region, including Linate), and this consequently led to a full acquittal of the defendants.
The acquittal is based upon the alleged implicit abrogation (Article 14 of the Pre-laws) of Navigation Code rules as charged concerning the obligatory duty to monitor equipment and structures presiding over flight safety at Linate Airport, also in conformity with international ICAO regulations.
The Court also decided there was no causal connection between the omissive behavior charged to the defendants and the event – the air crash and multiple accounts of manslaughter -- because, according to the appeals sentence, the two defendants (ENAC employees) had no power-influence over ENAV managers concerning the installation of instruments to ensure air safety and the maintenance of perfect efficiency in Linate Airport.
The lawyers of defendants Gualano and Zacchetti presented ponderous appeals to the Supreme Court, claiming repeated violations of court procedures and the law.
Attorney General Dr. Sinagra, who had demanded the conviction (albeit with light sentences) of the acquitted defendants, also presented an appeal to the Cassation Court, claiming serious legal errors were committed by the Milan Court by acquitting Linate Airport Manager Fusco and Area Manager Federico.
In his appeal, the Milan Attorney General also asked that the appeals sentence be annulled because the sentence inflicted upon Air Traffic Controller Zacchetti does not take into account, according to Art. 113 of the Penal Code, of the gravity and devastating effects of the two crimes committed.
It must immediately be said that if the Public Prosecutor’s charge is sustained, the trial must return to another section of the Milan Appeals Court for a re-examination of Fusco and Federico’s position and to determine a higher sentence to be inflicted upon the air traffic controller.
This will also happen in the objectionable hypothesis of an acceptance of Gualano and Zacchetti’s appeals.
Moreover, by prolonging the time needed for all the various phases and degrees of this extremely complex case, there is a risk of PRESCRIPTION for the one hundred and eighteen counts of manslaughter (united as multiple counts of manslaughter according to Art. 589, paragraph 3, of the Penal Code, only concerning the unitary sentence to be charged).
According to Articles 157, 159, and 171 of the Penal Code and Article 6 of recent Law n. 251/2005 (which reduced prescription terms for many crimes), no defendant can be prosecuted on manslaughter charges after April 8, 2009. The sentences would be consequently reduced for those defendants if their sentences were still not final.
At any rate, the more serious crime of air disaster (Article 449, paragraph 2, Penal Code) charged to all defendants will fall into prescription at a later date, on April 8, 2014, when all trials and positions should hopefully and necessarily be concluded.
B – POSITION OF DEFENDANTS IN THE ABBREVIATED TRIAL.
(Dr. Clivio, monocratic judge, in the second trial of the preliminary hearing – sentence (pages 213) on March 14, 2005, deposited on June 13, 2005).
The decision on the abbreviated proceedings only arrived in 2005, which was almost a year after the conclusion of the ordinary trial. This is a genuine anomaly of the new trial system introduced with the 1989 reform.
This happened because the first Investigating Magistrate Dr. Petromer, at the first preliminary hearing in 2003, decided that the requests of the defendants for an abbreviated trial were presented too late.
At the first hearing before the court, penal section 4, the attorneys of seven of the eleven defendants committed to trial brought up the issue of competency. The Court, having separated the trial into two sections (the ordinary trial with four defendants proceeded with the ordinary procedure, see paragraph A), agreed with the seven defendants who were denied the right by the Investigating Magistrate to be admitted to the abbreviated procedure and to the related advantages they would have received if convicted.
The separate trial was presented before the S.C. Penal Section I, which sustained the objection and submitted the seven defendants before the Investigative Magistrate of Milan.
As mentioned above, the beginning of the abbreviated trial was in 2005, after the ordinary trial had already ended with a conviction of all four defendants. During the various hearings, the new Investigating Magistrate rejected all preliminary objections presented by the lawyers of the defendants.
After ordering an on-site inspection of the Linate Airport to see the condition of areas of the runway and in the control tower and having interrogated, as shown in the records, the defendants who had made the request, Dr. Gravina took the floor and asked that all seven defendants be convicted. The lawyers of the plaintiff presented their conclusions, which were recorded, and finally, the defense lawyers of the defendants and responsible third parties were heard (over thirty lawyers) over a number of sessions.
After withdrawing to his chambers to review the case, Dr. Clivio presented his decision on March 14, 2005, with the following purview.
General Manager MARZOCCA (ENAV) was convicted with a (higher) jail sentence of four years and four months (the same inflicted upon Gualano in the ordinary proceedings, considered a reduction of one-third of the sentence as a consequence of the advantage in this type of trial).
Defendants PERRONE, manager of the Linate flight assistance center (CAV), and PATRIZI, his local supervisor, were sentenced to three years and ten months in jail.
Mr. CIARNIELLO, central safety supervisor, was sentenced to three years and four months in jail.
With the same sentence, the GUP acquitted Sandro GASPARINI for a proven defect of the subjective element. The sentence became final, since it was confirmed in appeals and was not contested in the Cassation Court by the prosecuting attorney.
The two SEA managers Cavanna and Grecchi were acquitted according to Article 530, paragraph 2, of the Penal Code, with what was once called “dubitative formula”. The GUP in the sentence (page 210) deemed the causal connection between the ascertained failures of the horizontal markings on the west apron, for which they were responsible, and the event for which this trial is being held was not “sufficiently proven.”
At this point, it should be pointed out that the conviction of PERRONE, PATRIZI, and CIARNIELLO IS FINAL. Before the parallel appeal in Penal Section 4 began, the lawyers of the three defendants bargained a plea with the prosecuting attorney for a three-year jail term (entirely remitted).
The Territorial Court ratified this plea bargain with the sentence.
The three defendants mentioned above are the first to have been definitely held responsible for the Linate air disaster, the most serious accident in the history of civil aviation in Italy and the world’s second worse accident between two planes colliding on the runway.
At this present time, I as a citizen share all the bitterness of everyone so seriously affected by this tragedy, especially when I think that the three culprits will not spend even one day in jail.
I cannot say or write more at this time because I am representing a plaintiff in a private case against seven other defendants before the Supreme Court (three in the abbreviated proceedings and four in the ordinary trial).
The sentence of the GUP was appealed by Mr. Marzocca (besides the three who made a plea bargain) and by the Public Prosecutor concerning the acquittal of the two SEA managers.
Further complicating an already complex legal situation is Law n. 46 of 2006 (the so-called Pecorella Law) that repealed the laws giving the Public Prosecutor the faculty to appeal acquittals. As a result, the Milan Court should have declared the Public Prosecutor’s appeal inadmissible.
The new law (declared unconstitutional last December) gave the Public Prosecutor a deadline within which time he or she had to present an appeal for cassation.
To avoid uselessly wasting time, the Milan Court, correctly applying the law in force, and with a motivated ruling (the issue was also mentioned in the sentence), decided that in this specific case, as requested by the Public Prosecutor and me during the civil proceedings, Dr. Gravina’s impugning of the sentence could be used also in light of the new law mentioned above.
In this regard, the Appeals Court, modifying the reconstruction of the GUP concerning the conduct of the Cessna pilots, convicted Cavanna and Grecchi, considering their conduct, as contested, as a cause leading to the accident. After various hearings also in the abbreviated proceedings, Cavanna and Grecchi were both convicted to a sentence of three years in jail (entirely remitted).
The conviction in first instance of ENAV General Manager Mazzocca was confirmed in the appeal.
The three convicted defendants presented appeals for violations of court procedures and the law. While I believe the compromised position of the ENAV General Manager should not hold surprises in Cassation, the positions of the two SEA employees are open to outcomes in the trial that may delay the process of the Milan Appeals Court, with a risk of PRESCRIPTION.
As everyone knows, both trials will hopefully be called to hearing on FEBRUARY 19, 2008 BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT IN ROME, PENAL SECTION FOUR, AT 10:00 A.M. The Court will be presided over by Dr. Battisti, a judge of great fame and experience.
Dr. Bianchi will promote and write the future sentence.
We must grit our teeth and keep fighting because the final sentences may be pronounced soon in answer to the legitimate expectations of the many people who have been deeply affected by this tragedy.
Please feel free to contact me if you have further questions.
Paolo Dondina, Attorney-at-Law
In the first instance and after an extremely long debate lasting approximately forty hearings, all the defendants were convicted: SANDRO GUALANO (ENAV) sentenced to 6 years and 6 months in jail; FRANCESCO FEDERICO (ENAC) sentenced to 6 years and 6 months in jail; PAOLO ZACCHETTI (ENAV) sentenced to 8 years in jail; VINCENZO FUSCO (ENAC - Linate Airport Manager) sentenced to 8 years in jail.
Besides being convicted and charged with court costs, the defendants and civilian managers (ENAV and ENAC) were charged with paying damages to the civilian parties, net of the advance payments received as provisional amounts or actual offers.
The appeals trial was held before the Milan Appeals Court, penal section 4 (President Caccamo, Dr. Beretta, promoter and writer of the sentence).
The appeal began in the fall of 2005 and concluded on July 7, 2006, after many hearings and an official examination of the tapes (sequestered) of the conversations between Air-Traffic Controllers and the pilots.
Expert testimony proved the groundlessness and speciousness of the objections raised particularly by the defense attorneys of Zacchetti and Gualano concerning the unreliability and regularity of the translation and transcription (made by Commander Pica, the Technical Consultant of Public Prosecutor Gravina) of TBT conversations, provided on diskette to the defense when the documents were deposited, once investigations were concluded (art. 415 bis Code of Penal Procedures).
To be scrupulous, the Appeals Court decided to hear Commander Pica again, who confirmed what had already been amply documented in the thick files of case papers concerning the reconstruction of the accident, once again showing the Court the films and all the assessments made to demonstrate the condition of serious fault and abandonment of the Linate Airport, on that tragic morning of October 8, 2001, and before that date.
Preliminarily, the Territorial Court, as had already occurred before Investigating Magistrate Petromer and the Court, rejected all objections of alleged violation of the rights of the defense. The Court, subsequently entering in merit of the matter, disregarded the motivations of Gualano’s defense attorneys, confirming the conviction of the defendant, which is the highest in the appeals trial.
The Appeals Judge also confirmed the co-responsibility of Air Traffic Controller Zacchetti, whose sentence was reduced to 3 years and entirely remitted.
The Milan Court explained the air traffic controller’s reduction of the sentence as follows:
“In the chain of situations, procedures, and instruments that must ensure the safety of the flight, the air traffic controller is the last and, therefore, weakest link if there is a lack of adequate support destined to limit the risk of error.
Compared to the enduring negligent behavior of Gualano (and Marzocca, the General Manager) concerning replacement of the radar, compared to the facts regarding the maintenance of the markings, which are also the result of protracted negligence, compared to the general bad management of flight infrastructures and mapping by other ENAV offices (CAV Linate, Regional Coordination, Traffic Office), which also continued over time, Zacchetti’s error took place in a few seconds, the time of the action that Article 133 of the Penal Code indicates as an evaluation criterion of the seriousness of the fact.
Zacchetti must therefore be judged less harshly than those who had greater opportunities to ensure flight safety; however, it must be said that his failure to stop the Cessna was a glaring blunder.
The same Public Prosecutor concluded his closing speech in the first instance with a request for a sentence of three years and ten months that clearly indicate the different position and responsibility compared to the other defendants, due to their positions of greater responsibility and related authority.”
The Territorial Court unexpectedly upheld the appeals of Fusco and Federico based on the argument that a higher authority above the two defendants was at fault (even though the first was Linate Airport Manager and the second was Area Manager of the three main airports of the Lombardy Region, including Linate), and this consequently led to a full acquittal of the defendants.
The acquittal is based upon the alleged implicit abrogation (Article 14 of the Pre-laws) of Navigation Code rules as charged concerning the obligatory duty to monitor equipment and structures presiding over flight safety at Linate Airport, also in conformity with international ICAO regulations.
The Court also decided there was no causal connection between the omissive behavior charged to the defendants and the event – the air crash and multiple accounts of manslaughter -- because, according to the appeals sentence, the two defendants (ENAC employees) had no power-influence over ENAV managers concerning the installation of instruments to ensure air safety and the maintenance of perfect efficiency in Linate Airport.
The lawyers of defendants Gualano and Zacchetti presented ponderous appeals to the Supreme Court, claiming repeated violations of court procedures and the law.
Attorney General Dr. Sinagra, who had demanded the conviction (albeit with light sentences) of the acquitted defendants, also presented an appeal to the Cassation Court, claiming serious legal errors were committed by the Milan Court by acquitting Linate Airport Manager Fusco and Area Manager Federico.
In his appeal, the Milan Attorney General also asked that the appeals sentence be annulled because the sentence inflicted upon Air Traffic Controller Zacchetti does not take into account, according to Art. 113 of the Penal Code, of the gravity and devastating effects of the two crimes committed.
It must immediately be said that if the Public Prosecutor’s charge is sustained, the trial must return to another section of the Milan Appeals Court for a re-examination of Fusco and Federico’s position and to determine a higher sentence to be inflicted upon the air traffic controller.
This will also happen in the objectionable hypothesis of an acceptance of Gualano and Zacchetti’s appeals.
Moreover, by prolonging the time needed for all the various phases and degrees of this extremely complex case, there is a risk of PRESCRIPTION for the one hundred and eighteen counts of manslaughter (united as multiple counts of manslaughter according to Art. 589, paragraph 3, of the Penal Code, only concerning the unitary sentence to be charged).
According to Articles 157, 159, and 171 of the Penal Code and Article 6 of recent Law n. 251/2005 (which reduced prescription terms for many crimes), no defendant can be prosecuted on manslaughter charges after April 8, 2009. The sentences would be consequently reduced for those defendants if their sentences were still not final.
At any rate, the more serious crime of air disaster (Article 449, paragraph 2, Penal Code) charged to all defendants will fall into prescription at a later date, on April 8, 2014, when all trials and positions should hopefully and necessarily be concluded.
B – POSITION OF DEFENDANTS IN THE ABBREVIATED TRIAL.
(Dr. Clivio, monocratic judge, in the second trial of the preliminary hearing – sentence (pages 213) on March 14, 2005, deposited on June 13, 2005).
The decision on the abbreviated proceedings only arrived in 2005, which was almost a year after the conclusion of the ordinary trial. This is a genuine anomaly of the new trial system introduced with the 1989 reform.
This happened because the first Investigating Magistrate Dr. Petromer, at the first preliminary hearing in 2003, decided that the requests of the defendants for an abbreviated trial were presented too late.
At the first hearing before the court, penal section 4, the attorneys of seven of the eleven defendants committed to trial brought up the issue of competency. The Court, having separated the trial into two sections (the ordinary trial with four defendants proceeded with the ordinary procedure, see paragraph A), agreed with the seven defendants who were denied the right by the Investigating Magistrate to be admitted to the abbreviated procedure and to the related advantages they would have received if convicted.
The separate trial was presented before the S.C. Penal Section I, which sustained the objection and submitted the seven defendants before the Investigative Magistrate of Milan.
As mentioned above, the beginning of the abbreviated trial was in 2005, after the ordinary trial had already ended with a conviction of all four defendants. During the various hearings, the new Investigating Magistrate rejected all preliminary objections presented by the lawyers of the defendants.
After ordering an on-site inspection of the Linate Airport to see the condition of areas of the runway and in the control tower and having interrogated, as shown in the records, the defendants who had made the request, Dr. Gravina took the floor and asked that all seven defendants be convicted. The lawyers of the plaintiff presented their conclusions, which were recorded, and finally, the defense lawyers of the defendants and responsible third parties were heard (over thirty lawyers) over a number of sessions.
After withdrawing to his chambers to review the case, Dr. Clivio presented his decision on March 14, 2005, with the following purview.
General Manager MARZOCCA (ENAV) was convicted with a (higher) jail sentence of four years and four months (the same inflicted upon Gualano in the ordinary proceedings, considered a reduction of one-third of the sentence as a consequence of the advantage in this type of trial).
Defendants PERRONE, manager of the Linate flight assistance center (CAV), and PATRIZI, his local supervisor, were sentenced to three years and ten months in jail.
Mr. CIARNIELLO, central safety supervisor, was sentenced to three years and four months in jail.
With the same sentence, the GUP acquitted Sandro GASPARINI for a proven defect of the subjective element. The sentence became final, since it was confirmed in appeals and was not contested in the Cassation Court by the prosecuting attorney.
The two SEA managers Cavanna and Grecchi were acquitted according to Article 530, paragraph 2, of the Penal Code, with what was once called “dubitative formula”. The GUP in the sentence (page 210) deemed the causal connection between the ascertained failures of the horizontal markings on the west apron, for which they were responsible, and the event for which this trial is being held was not “sufficiently proven.”
At this point, it should be pointed out that the conviction of PERRONE, PATRIZI, and CIARNIELLO IS FINAL. Before the parallel appeal in Penal Section 4 began, the lawyers of the three defendants bargained a plea with the prosecuting attorney for a three-year jail term (entirely remitted).
The Territorial Court ratified this plea bargain with the sentence.
The three defendants mentioned above are the first to have been definitely held responsible for the Linate air disaster, the most serious accident in the history of civil aviation in Italy and the world’s second worse accident between two planes colliding on the runway.
At this present time, I as a citizen share all the bitterness of everyone so seriously affected by this tragedy, especially when I think that the three culprits will not spend even one day in jail.
I cannot say or write more at this time because I am representing a plaintiff in a private case against seven other defendants before the Supreme Court (three in the abbreviated proceedings and four in the ordinary trial).
The sentence of the GUP was appealed by Mr. Marzocca (besides the three who made a plea bargain) and by the Public Prosecutor concerning the acquittal of the two SEA managers.
Further complicating an already complex legal situation is Law n. 46 of 2006 (the so-called Pecorella Law) that repealed the laws giving the Public Prosecutor the faculty to appeal acquittals. As a result, the Milan Court should have declared the Public Prosecutor’s appeal inadmissible.
The new law (declared unconstitutional last December) gave the Public Prosecutor a deadline within which time he or she had to present an appeal for cassation.
To avoid uselessly wasting time, the Milan Court, correctly applying the law in force, and with a motivated ruling (the issue was also mentioned in the sentence), decided that in this specific case, as requested by the Public Prosecutor and me during the civil proceedings, Dr. Gravina’s impugning of the sentence could be used also in light of the new law mentioned above.
In this regard, the Appeals Court, modifying the reconstruction of the GUP concerning the conduct of the Cessna pilots, convicted Cavanna and Grecchi, considering their conduct, as contested, as a cause leading to the accident. After various hearings also in the abbreviated proceedings, Cavanna and Grecchi were both convicted to a sentence of three years in jail (entirely remitted).
The conviction in first instance of ENAV General Manager Mazzocca was confirmed in the appeal.
The three convicted defendants presented appeals for violations of court procedures and the law. While I believe the compromised position of the ENAV General Manager should not hold surprises in Cassation, the positions of the two SEA employees are open to outcomes in the trial that may delay the process of the Milan Appeals Court, with a risk of PRESCRIPTION.
As everyone knows, both trials will hopefully be called to hearing on FEBRUARY 19, 2008 BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT IN ROME, PENAL SECTION FOUR, AT 10:00 A.M. The Court will be presided over by Dr. Battisti, a judge of great fame and experience.
Dr. Bianchi will promote and write the future sentence.
We must grit our teeth and keep fighting because the final sentences may be pronounced soon in answer to the legitimate expectations of the many people who have been deeply affected by this tragedy.
Please feel free to contact me if you have further questions.
Paolo Dondina, Attorney-at-Law
Milano - 08/01/2008