Bondo trial tests responsibility for deadly landslide

SRF reports that the Regional Court of Maloja will decide whether five people failed to close hiking trails before the 2017 Bondo landslide, which killed eight hikers.

The trial centres on whether trails in the Val Bondasca valley should have been closed before around three million cubic metres of rock broke away from Piz Cengalo on August 23, 2017, crashing into the valley and burying paths several metres deep.

The five defendants, including Graubünden national councillor Anna Giacometti, face charges of multiple counts of negligent homicide. Prosecutors allege that they misjudged the danger at Piz Cengalo and ignored several warning signs of an imminent landslide. They argue that safety measures, including closing the trails, should have been taken and are seeking suspended monetary penalties.

Defence lawyers argued that the geological calculations and risk assessment had been correct. Experts had forecast an event in the coming weeks or months nine days before the landslide, they said, but no one could have predicted that the mountain would collapse so soon and with such force.

Giacometti, who was mayor of Bregaglia at the time, was the person who could have ordered the trails closed, according to the report. She told the court that she had relied on assessments from cantonal experts because she was not a geologist. She and her lawyer said that this was a responsible course of action.

Giacometti became visibly emotional in her closing statement and said she had acted to the best of her knowledge and conscience.

The court is due to announce its verdict on September 4. The decision could set a precedent for mountain regions across Switzerland, where the trial has repeatedly raised questions about residual risk in the mountains and the balance between hikers’ personal responsibility and the duties of local authorities and natural hazard experts.

The report also noted that climate change and thawing permafrost could make natural events such as landslides more common, not only in Graubünden.