New developments for the investigations into the enormous landslide which brought Niscemi, a municipality in the province of Caltanissetta, to its knees since last January 25th, where around 1500 people were forced to leave their homes.
Among those under investigation are the names of the presidents of the Sicily Region, who have held the position from 2010 to today: they are Raffaele Lombardo, Rosario Crocetta, Nello Musumeci (now Minister for Civil Protection and Maritime Policies) and Renato Schifani (current regional governor).
The Gela prosecutor Salvatore Vella opened the case for a negligent disaster and damage followed by a landslide, but there are currently 13 people registered in the register of suspects.
As regards the presidents of the Region, it must be clarified that the investigation sees them involved both as commissioners delegated to implement the interventions envisaged by the national civil protection ordinance which concerned the implementation of landslide risk mitigation works and as government commissioners against hydrogeological instability. Also included in the register are the heads of the regional civil protection in office from 2010 to 2026, including Calogero Foti and Salvatore Cocina, the general directors of the Region in charge of the office against hydrogeological instability and the head of the joint venture which should have carried out the mitigation works contracted at the beginning of 2000.
View this post on Instagram
How the investigations will continue
As clarified by prosecutor Vella, the investigation into the Niscemi landslide is divided into three parts. The first, which currently has 13 under investigation, focuses on the failure to carry out mitigation works that could have prevented or reduced the consequences of the landslide and which were established after the important landslide event of 1997 and the failure to maintain monitoring systems to protect citizens. It was 1999 when the procurement contract for the implementation of the interventions was signed for 12 million euros but nothing was achieved and the contract with ATI, which had won the tender, was terminated in 2010.
Instead, the second phase will be related to the lack of interventions on the collection and regulation of white and black water which were immediately identified as the cause of the triggering of the landslide. Finally, the last one concerns the red zone, both the one declared following the landslide event of ’97 and those close to the edge already identified as very high risk in the report of the commission appointed by order of the Presidency of the Council. The investigations will therefore focus on the failed evictions and demolitions that were not carried out, on the blocking of new buildings and on the authorizations of works that should not have been built. The list of suspects for the last two phases will certainly grow in the coming weeks. Niscemi is a hydrogeological disaster, but also a human one, and Sicily and its inhabitants deserve justice.
You might also be interested in:
