Rome, Feb 1 (IANS/AKI) Former Italian rail chief Mauro Moretti and other defendants jailed over the 2009 Viareggio rail disaster that killed 32 people should resign, families of the victims said on Wednesday.
"It is morally unacceptable that after a conviction of first instance, Mauro Moretti continues to lead a state company," the families said through their spokesman Marco Piagentini.
"We request his resignation and that he be stripped of his Order of Merit for Labour," the families stated.
The families were referring to former Italian railways chief Mauro Moretti, who is currently head of state-controlled defence and aeropspace giant Leonardo.
A court in the Tuscan city of Lucca on Tuesday jailed Moretti and another top Italian manager to seven years and two others to six and a half years in prison for their roles in the train derailment which caused a massive gas explosion.
The families also said they found "offensive" the statement made by Moretti's lawyer Armando D'Apote who said his sentence was "scandalous" and "oozed populism".
The Lucca court of first instance convicted 23 people over the June 29, 2009 disaster when liquid petroleum gas cannisters carried by the train blew up into a fireball that engulfed Viareggio station and nearby houses in the Tuscan seaside town.
The court gave a nine year and nine month prison sentence to Rainer Kogelheide, managing director of GATX Rail Europe Group, a tank and freight-train leasing company that owned the wagons that derailed.
Peter Linowski, maintenance manager of GATX Rail Germany was also jailed for nine years and nine months.
The managing director of GATX Rail Austria, Roman Mayer, and Uwe Koennecke, head of the German maintenance company that checked the wagons, got nine years in jail.
Italian rail company Trenitalia's cargo division chief Mario Castaldo was sentenced to seven years in prison, while Trentialia's former managing director, Vincenzo Soprano, and the former head of Italy's rail network company RFI, Michele Mario Elia, got six years and six months.
Fourteen other Italian and German managers were jailed for between six and eight years.
Italy's Ferrovie dello Stato group and its logistics subsidiary were among companies acquitted while RFI and Trenitalia were found guilty.
GATX Rail Europe Group told Germany's DPA news agency in a statement on Tuesday that it planned to appeal the verdict.
A total of 33 people and nine companies were tried on various charges including rail disaster, multiple manslaughter, culpable arson and bodily harm. The court issued 10 acquittals in the trial.
--IANS/AKI
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