L'Aquila earthquake scientists cleared of manslaughter for failing to predict it

Seven Italian scientists who faced jail for failing to predict a deadly 2009 earthquake have been cleared of manslaughter convictions that had sparked international outrage.

The seven men were sentenced to six years in jail in October 2012 after a court in the town of L'Aquila found them guilty of causing multiple deaths by having negligently downplayed the risk of the town being hit by a major earthquake just days before the killer tremor struck in April 2009. Scientists around the world reacted with outrage, since there is no known way to reliably predict earthquakes.

After a month-long appeal trial in the mountain town east of Rome, the verdict was overturned on Monday by a panel of three judges which concluded that six of the seven had committed no crime.

The judges partially upheld some of the charges against one defendant, Bernardo De Bernardinis but downgraded his sentence to a two-year suspended prison sentence that will not lead to him having a criminal record.

"The credibility of Italy's entire scientific community has been restored," said Stefano Gresta, the president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, whose predecessor, Enzo Boschi, was one of the most eminent of the seven defendants.