Appeals court orders retrial of red sludge case

Győr, February 6 (MTI) – The appeals court of Győr, in northwestern Hungary, threw out an earlier ruling in a case concerning Hungary’s 2010 red sludge disaster, and ordered new procedures in the case, on Monday.

A year ago, all 15 suspects were acquitted of charges of carelessness and causing public hazard, harming the environment and violating rules of waste management by a local court in Veszprém, in western Hungary.

According to the appeals court ruling, the Veszprém court had violated several procedural rules and “the logic which led to the acquittal of all defendants cannot be traced”.

In Hungary’s worst environmental disaster a million cubic metres of toxic red sludge escaped from the reservoir of the Mal company’s alumina plant, flooding the nearby villages of Kolontár and Somlovásárhely, and the town of Devecser in October 2010. The toxic spill killed ten people, injured over 200, destroyed 358 homes, wiped out all life in two small rivers and polluted over 1,000 hectares of land.