(Mostly an edited repost of a comment I made in yesterday's discussion on the same topic.) A blog post on Nature.com about a month ago explains better why they

(Mostly an edited repost of a comment I made in yesterday's discussion on the same topic.) A blog post on Nature.com about a month ago explains better why they were on trial, which is not the misprediction that an earthquake was imminent: The prosecution’s closing arguments [...] made it clear that the scientists are not accused of failing to predict the earthquake. “Even six-year old kids know that earthquakes can not be predicted,” he said. “The goal of the meeting was very different: the scientists were supposed to evaluate whether the seismic sequence could be considered a precursor event, to assess what damages had already happened at that point, to discuss how to mitigate risks.” Picuti said the panel members did not fulfill these commitments, and that their risk analysis was “flawed, inadequate, negligent and deceptive”, resulting in wrong information being given to citizens. Source: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/09/porsecution-asks-for-four-year-sentence-in-italian-seismology-trial.html http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/09/porsecution-asks-for-fo... If you can read Italian, there are a few online newspapers have comprehensive explanations about the trial matter: [1]: http://www.giornalettismo.com/archives/548491/terremoto-laquila-la-sentenza-la-commissione-grandi-rischi-e-colpevole/ http://www.giornalettismo.com/archives/548491/terremoto-laqu... [2]: http://newrassegna.camera.it/chiosco_new/pagweb/getPDFarticolo.asp?currentArticle=1M75AD http://newrassegna.camera.it/chiosco_new/pagweb/getPDFartico... [3]: http://www.cattivamaestra.it/2012/10/sentenza-processo-aquila-grandi-rischi.html http://www.cattivamaestra.it/2012/10/sentenza-processo-aquil...