Dear all,
I?ll try to explain some passages.
Please, known that my information comes from published scientific
papers and from published articles on various media. Perhaps our INGV
colleagues who prepared that letter have further legal and scientific
information that is not available to the public. Moreover, I am not a
lawyer and I will probably do some legal mistakes.
(1) After the 2009 L?Aquila earthquake, some inhabitants of L?Aquila
drew up a legal report against those scientists gathered in that
meeting (High Risk Committee) that preceded the main shock by a few
days, for ?apparently? tranquillizing (their opinion) declarations
released after the meeting.
(2) At that point, the magistrate who received the report must (by
law) start investigating those who are the object of the report. In
Italian this is named ?obbligatorietà dell?azione penale?, meaning the
magistrate is obliged to start the criminal action/investigation.
Moreover, the magistrate must (by law) send those who are investigated
official information of investigation so that they are aware of these
investigations and they can defend themselves as better as possible.
(3) The big problem and bad thing at this point is that newspapers
start to speculate upon these investigations and those investigated
may appear as already guilty even though the above-mentioned
investigations may simply end up with a no prosecution, i.e., no
trial, no judges, no lawyers, no criminal issues, etc.
(4) We are exactly at this point (to the best of my knowledge).
Investigations are in progress, the investigated scientists have been
officially informed about them being investigated, and media are
informing about and speculating upon this matter.
(5) I may be wrong (as above mentioned), but from the Italian
newspapers I understand that the magistrate(s) is (are) investigating
scientists not for failing to be fatidical (i.e., they did not
forecast the main shock), but for ?presumably? tranquillizing
declarations (in the opinion of L?Aquila inhabitants) released during
the foreshock sequence. I reaffirm that I may be wrong on this
information.
I think a more complete and appropriate (legally and scientifically)
message from our INGV colleagues who prepared the letter for the
Italian President will surely shed much more light on this matter than
I could do with this message.
Ciao
Andrea
_________________________________________________
Andrea Billi (PhD)
Istituto di Geologia Ambientale e Geoingegneria,
CNR, Area della Ricerca Roma 1,
Via Salaria km 29,300,
Monterotondo, 00016, Rome, Italy
Phone: +39 06-90672732
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web site: http://www.andreabilli.com
_________________________________________________
Dalla Costituzione della Repubblica Italiana
Art. 9: "La Repubblica promuove lo sviluppo della cultura
e la ricerca scientifica e tecnica."
Art. 33: "L'arte e la scienza sono libere e libero ne è
l'insegnamento."
"Non è grave il clamore chiassoso dei violenti, bensì il silenzio
spaventoso delle persone oneste." Martin Luther King
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