US/Italy: Marine convicted on minor charges
01 May 1999
Richard Ashby, US pilot of the Prowler plane which severed the cable of a ski slope cable car on the Cermis mountain in the Italian Alps, killing 20 people on 3 February 1998, was sentenced to six months in prison and was dismissed from the Marines, on 10 May. He was found guilty of conspiracy and obstruction of justice, after removing the videotape of the flight which navigator, Joseph Schweitzer, had recorded from the aircraft on a camcorder (see Statewatch vol 9 no 2). He was acquitted on manslaughter charges at a previous trial on the grounds that the flight had been authorised by the responsible Italian and US military authorities, that the radar-altitude gauge on the plane was faulty, and that there was no indication of the cable in his flight map. This map was supplied by NIMA (National Imagery and Mapping Agency), the agency which was responsible for providing the outdated map which led to NATOs bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo war in May.
Ashby was found guilty for the part he played in destroying evidence, but was cleared of the more serious charges. The US court martial did not implicate senior US and Italian military officials who, Francantonio Granera and Bruno Giardina, the Italian investigating magistrates, found to be responsible for the repeated breaches of safety regulations which led to the disaster. In April, US Defence Secretary William Cohen and the Italian defence minister, Carlo Scognamiglio, agreed to enhance Italian authority over US military training flights, and to limit low-level training flights in Aviano to 25% of the total training flights from the airbase.
Times 13.5.99; International Herald Tribune 17-18.5.99, 8-11.5.99.