Hungary court frees 15 in toxic spill case

BUDAPEST: A Hungarian court acquitted on Thursday 15 people charged with criminal negligence relating to a toxic red sludge spill which flooded part of Western Hungary in 2010, killing 10 people and destroying hundreds of homes across three towns.
The spill was one of the worst environmental disasters to hit the central European country of 10 million people. It took years and cost about 40 billion forints ($140 million) to clean up toxic red mud that covered the countryside and seeped into rivers as far downstream as the Danube.
MAL Corp, the aluminium smelting company that owned the faulty alumina reservoir was taken over by the government, which declared it responsible for the incident and began to close it down.
But in its first-instance ruling, the court said executives and top employees of MAL had not been criminal negligent or committed other crimes they were charged with during the 40-month legal procedure.
“The defendants had no realistic and objective opportunity to discover the hazards that had formed,” the court said in a statement, adding that relevant authorities had signed off on the reservoir’s blueprints and operation, and held regular checks.
“The authorities had uncovered no shortfalls and prescribed no additional checks. The catastrophe had no predictable, visible, recognisable prior sign,” the court said.