Himera viaduct collapse: all defendants acquitted

Last Updated: December 12, 2023

All the defendants have been acquitted despite the statute of limitations, and for the only two convicted defendants, they were acquitted with the formula “because the fact does not exist.” The Court of Appeals overturned the first-instance verdict for the collapse of the Himera viaduct that occurred on the Palermo-Catania highway on April 10, 2015. The one-year sentence imposed on Calogero Foti, then general manager of the regional civil protection agency, and Anas employee Giuseppe Siragusa has been dropped. The process closes without any guilty parties. The acquittal of Calogero Lanza, former mayor of Caltavuturo, another Anas employee, Salvatore Muscarella, and Mariano Sireci, former head of the civil protection agency of the Municipality of Caltavuturo, has also been confirmed. None of the defendants had been accused of the collapse of the infrastructure, which was crucial for the island’s traffic and was reopened only four years later in 2019. The appeal was brought by the civil parties, namely Anas, Società Agricola Chiusa di Caltavuturo, Codacons, and Sais, but their requests for compensation were not granted by the court. The defendants’ defense argued that the responsibility for the viaduct lay with the Province, not Anas. The collapse was caused by the unstable ground on which the viaduct’s pillars were built.