A mansion based in red clay

In criminal proceedings for the Red Mud disaster that killed ten people ten years ago, 15 people were originally charged, and three law enforcement officials were sentenced to prison terms and asked for a review of the case.

Ex-CEO of Magyar Alumínium Termelő és Kereskedelmi (Mal) Zrt. , The company’s former technical vice president and former head of the hydrate production plant is currently serving their sentences, and prisons Kecskemét and Szombathely joined the Korea public meeting with a distant hearing.

According to the Korea Court, there was no procedural error to be eliminated in the case, as the justices wrote according to the applicable rules – MTI Books. Also, a request to exclude more than one judge on grounds of bias is unfounded, as no conflict of interest has arisen.

The Supreme Judicial Forum also examined the issue of the accused’s deliberate negligence and misconduct. The judge explained that the general risk would have been realized even if the reservoir had not stored such a toxic substance, but rather clean water, because the leakage of the amount of materials trapped between the dams and the force of the flood was already suitable to cause the general danger.

The CEO’s failure to pay compensation is intentional because not only did the overall risk occur, but was exacerbated by the toxic alkalinity of the spill, which the CEO first described as dangerous as four times the alkalinity of soap. He added, however, that all this did not mean that the CEO wanted to kill the people and destroy the neighborhood.

The largest environmental disaster in Hungary, killing ten people, occurred on October 4, 2010, ten years ago. Near Ajka, near the village of Kolontár, the dam of the mud reservoir at the Mal Zrt plant was broken. To alumina at Ajka at 12:25, a mixture of over a million cubic meters of water and toxic red clay spilled deep into. Parts of Kolontár, Devecser and Somlóvásárhely.

Ten Kolluntar residents were killed in the disaster, 123 people were severely burned from a highly corrosive alkaline, and doctors had to take care of 302 people. The red mud eruption also poisoned about a thousand hectares of land in the Agca region. In the three settlements concerned, more than three hundred homes became uninhabitable, most of them had to be demolished, and property damage due to movable and immovable property amounted to 1 billion forint.

An indictment of 15 people – executives and several of the company’s employees – was indicted on January 19, 2012 for public negligence with public threats and other crimes that led to the death of the disaster, with the indictment linking the deaths of eight people to a sludge spill.

In its preliminary ruling issued on January 28, 2016, the Veszprim Court acquitted all 15 defendants in the absence of a criminal offense. The decision was overturned by the Gyr Sentencing Board on February 6, 2017. In the new proceedings, on February 4, 2019, the Gyr First Instance Court found ten of the fifteen defendants guilty of first degree, two – the former CEO and the Technical Executive Director from the money the deputy visited Six were sentenced to suspended prison terms, one to a fine and one to reprimand. In a final ruling issued on December 13, 2019, the Governing Council in Gyur confirmed the initial ruling in the case of seven defendants, and sentenced three defendants to prison.

With the court’s final ruling, the first accused, Zoltan B. , Former CEO of Mal Zrt. His sentence is from two and a half to four years in prison due to general danger and violation of his waste management regulations.

Sentencing the second defendant, Dr. Palnet. Joseph, the company’s former technical director, sentenced to two and three years in prison, suspended for the fifth defendant, Joseph D., the former head of the company’s hydrate production plant, is obligated to.

In the review process, the former leaders’ defense lawyers challenged the legality of the ruling, as well as the method of repeated preliminary proceedings. In their petition, they demanded the release or annulment of the three convicts, and a new trial, but the minors did not agree to this.