Asbestos: hearing on March 9 before a possible criminal trial in Paris

During an interim hearing, the defense lawyers requested on Wednesday that the objections of nullity they intend to raise on the direct summons aimed at their clients be examined at a separate hearing.

The direct summons allows the victim of an offense or the public prosecutor to seize a criminal court directly. In this type of procedure, there are no investigations carried out by magistrates. Charges complainants with collecting evidence and naming suspects.

This was addressed to fourteen former representatives of ministries, business leaders or doctors, aged 62 to 84, who would have sought to delay the ban on carcinogenic fiber, which took place in 1997.

The plaintiffs want them to answer for their ties to the Permanent Asbestos Committee (CPA), described in a 2005 Senate report as a pro-asbestos "lobby" active between 1982 and 1995, when all varieties of asbestos were classified carcinogens by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 1977.

"The facts are more than thirty years old, some of the people cited have benefited from a dismissal for similar facts", pointed out Me Benoît Chabert, defense lawyer, while acknowledging the "legitimate pain" of the complainants.

The prosecutor and head of the public health department Laëtitia Costantini also spoke out in favor of a hearing devoted to admissibility, in particular because there are still many files under investigation at the same time.

"This is an extraordinary file, which poses material and organizational difficulties to accommodate" the 1.800 complainants "if they wish", noted the president of the court, Sylvie Moysan who accepted this request for a preliminary hearing. .

On the contrary, the victims' lawyers considered that there was no "absolute impossibility" justifying derogation from the rule of examining admissibility with the merits, during a single trial. Twenty plaintiffs intend to testify at the bar.

"Some have died recently, or have recently developed an illness. For the victims, these are not facts of thirty years ago", underlined Me Virginie Lemarié-Faure.

Most cancers linked to asbestos, a fiber used in particular in construction, automobiles and textiles until it was banned, concern the lung tissue, the bronchi or the pleura, and generally appear many years after having been there. been exposed.