The L'Aquila Trial Revisited

Introduction.- A short history of the event.- Seismological overview, including Giuliani forecast.- Seismic hazard, vulnerability and risk at L'Aquila.- The Major Risk Committee: history and duties.- The meeting of 31 March 2009 and what followed.- The prosecution and the international scientists' reaction.- The first degree trial; the material of prosecutor and defense.- The first degree sentence to six years and its motivation.- In particular, the "missing" seismic risk analysis vs the "missing" earthquake forecast.- An overview of the political and, mostly, the scientific response to the sentence.- The appeal trial and the acquittal (motivation to come). Could the verdict be overturned a second time?.- Conclusion: positive and negative changes introduced by the trial.

Massimiliano Stucchi, physicist, had a long and distinguished career during which he was a researcher at the Istituto per la Geofisica della Litosfera, CNR, Milan (1972-1994), Director of Research at the Istituto di Ricerca sul Rischio Sismico, CNR, Milan (1995-2000), and a member of the Department of Engineering Seismology, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (he was Head of the Department from 2001 to 2007 and from 2010 to 2012). Dr. Stucchi retired in 2012 but is affiliated to EUCENTRE (European Centre for Research and Training in Earthquake Engineering), Pavia. His principal areas of interest have been historical seismology, earthquake catalogues and macroseismics, and seismic hazard and risk analysis. During his career, he held a variety of offices in scientific and technical organizations, including: Coordinator of the "European Seismicity Database" for the SHARE, EU project from 2009 to 2013; Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (2008-2012); Member of the Scientific (2005-2007) and Advisory Boards (2007-2014) of EUCENTRE; and Chairperson of the European Seismological Commission's WGs "Macroseismology" (1992-1996), "Historical Seismology" (1998-2002), and "Uniform Parametric Earthquake Catalogue and Intensity Database for the European Mediterranean Area" (2007-2012). Dr. Stucchi was a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Earthquake Engineering from 1997 to 2005. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals.