Quirra, trial in the final stages

The time of the sentence is approaching at the trial for the poisons of Quirra, five years after the start of the proceedings and ten years after the opening of the investigation, after 64 hearings, 38 with preliminary activities, for examination of witnesses and experts and a bumpy process studded with postponements and appeals.

Between 2015 and 2016 the longest stop.

Over 400 days for a question raised by the Sardinia Region before the Constitutional Court regarding compensation.

A matter that had nothing to do with the responsibilities of the eight defendants

accused of willful failure to take precautions against accidents and disasters.

Quirra was an unprecedented judicial matter. It had never happened that eight senior officers of the Army and Air Force were called to answer for what happened in the base they commanded.

Fabio Molteni, Alessio Cecchetti, Roberto Quattrociocchi, Valter Mauloni, Carlo Landi, Paolo Ricci, Gianfranco Fois and Fulvio Francesco Ragazzon are the officers who took turns leading the base from 2002 to 2012.

At the preliminary hearing, which ended on 11 July 2014, only one charge survived. The gup of the Lanusei court, Nicola Clivio, having acquired the report of the expert Mario Mariani, had dismembered the charges and acquitted the other twelve people registered in the register of suspects by the public prosecutor Domenico Fiordalisi. Researchers, mayors, chemists and soldiers accused of having participated, in various ways, in the environmental disaster.

The Quirra trial was born maimed in the accusations and lame at departure, with a postponement due to a lack of notification. The first hearing should have been held on 23 September 2014.

The following criterion was applied to the establishment of a civil party: they were

admitted to compensation in the event of conviction are citizens who have reported illnesses and deaths that occurred in the period contemplated by the Public Prosecutor's Office, i.e. from 2002 to 2011.

Their stories have been told in recent years at the Lanusei Court. Like that of Mr. AP, good soul, stuffed with arsenic and cerium. In its fabrics also lead for an army. Like him also PL, whose tibia contained zirconium in quantity and other metals not supplied as standard to mankind. Quirra's remains tell the sad story of those who lived the Polygon and its poisons. In recent days, the lawyers of the 94 civil parties have requested compensation. Figures from 50 thousand to 20 million euros. Others have preferred to rely on the sensitivity of Judge Nicole Serra.

In recent days the question has been raised by many parties: was it worth it? Of such a long and difficult process, whose crimes (demeaned compared to expectations) are at risk of prescription. Will it be the classic soap bubble? The concept was effectively clarified by prosecutor Biagio Mazzeo during his discussion. «It was legitimate to go and see what was happening to people and animals inside and outside the Polygon. It is undeniable how tumor pathologies in this restricted area, a cluster, have an incidence out of the ordinary ». Mazzeo himself then said that there were never any ideological motivations. "It is not a trial of the armed forces or the military presence in Sardinia". Although most are skeptical, it is quite evident that the investigation and the trial have had some results. In Quirra there are no more blasts, Ogliastra is no longer the dump of obsolete weapons for all of Europe. There is a greater awareness of how a territory must be protected. The trial, to investigate the hypothesis of crime, has plumbed thirty years of secrets, omissions, guilty silences, starting with that of the Region. A former military of the Polygon, Andrea Lai di Perdasdefogu, described the Pisq in the courtroom. “It was like in a hotel. They booked, they came, they did what they had to do and then they left. And we also had to do the cleaning ». Without gloves. Well perhaps the Quirra trial has clarified this aspect: this house, our house, is not a hotel. Justice will take its course but certainly silence will not fall again on military activities in close contact with civilian populations.