A year in prison was required on Wednesday in Marseille against a former head of the city department for having transmitted an asbestos diagnosis two years late, contributing to the exposure of employees of the La Criée theater to this carcinogenic substance.
Robert Martin, 73, former head of service within the territorial management of southern buildings in Marseille, a sector on which La Criée depends, was tried since Tuesday for homicide and involuntary injury, endangering the lives of others but also false and use of forgery.
A diagnosis in 2006
He is accused of having waited until 2008 to transmit to the management of the theatre, operator of the building owned by the city of Marseille, a technical diagnosis dating from November 2006. The latter revealed the presence of asbestos, a highly toxic substance, in the enclosure of the theater. He disputes the facts.
“If Mr. Martin is here today, it is because people, workers, theater employees for decades have learned a few months apart that they had been unduly exposed for several years to asbestos. , without their knowledge”, and that they “developed pathologies characteristic of (this) exposure, even though people had the power, the knowledge and the means to act”, explained at the hearing the prosecutor of the Republic, Marion Chabot. The decision was reserved for June 26.