Karel Vinck, a Belgian manager who used to be at the head of the Italian subsidiary of the cement-asbestos giant Eternit in the seventies, was given a suspended three-year prison sentence by a Sicilian Court on May 26th, together with seven other former managers. The information has been edited by the Belgian magazine Knack.

“The Eternit managers have, to a large extent, put at risk and neglected the workers’ health by handling asbestos”, said a representative of the Public Prosecutor’s office.

Mr. Vinck is well-known in Belgium for having run the Belgian railways and the Flemish employers’ organisation. He has said he intends to appeal against the sentence and is now threatening legal action against Knack over what he claims is 'unfair and scandalous' reporting of the case.  Vinck said the dangers of asbestos were not known in the 1970s when he was the boss of Eternit Italy. In fact the cancer and respiratory disease link was established decades before. An International Labour Office (ILO) report in 1938, for example, warned of a possible lung cancer risk from asbestos exposure.