Defence seeks acquittal in trial over deadly Bondo landslide

Eight people died on August 23, 2017. On the second day of the Bondo landslide trial, defence lawyers asked the Maloja Regional Court to acquit the defendants, putting official responsibility for mountain hazards at the centre of the proceedings.

The court is sitting in Pontresina to hear the case involving the deadly rockslide in the Bondasca Valley, above the Bregaglia municipality in canton Graubünden. Prosecutors accuse five people of negligent homicide. On Monday, they sought suspended fines for the defendants.

The defence rejected the prosecution’s account. Lawyers argued that local and cantonal officials acted within the limits of their roles and followed the information available to them at the time. The case turns on the decision not to close hiking trails before the disaster and on the question of who had the authority, expertise and duty to recommend such a closure.

Former Bregaglia mayor Anna Giacometti’s lawyer told the court that she relied on specialists at the Graubünden Office for Forests and Natural Hazards and on an external geologist. The defence says that reliance was reasonable in a situation involving complex geological risks. The trial has drawn attention because it tests how Swiss municipalities and cantonal authorities should respond when expert assessments leave a residual danger.

The trails remained open nine days before the disaster. Giacometti’s lawyer said the decision followed assessments from the cantonal Office for Forests and Natural Hazards and advice from an external geologist. At that point, he told the court, no specialist had recommended closing the footpaths.

Representatives of the municipality and the canton took part in the decision-making process. The defence says that fact matters because the responsibility was collective and because the mayor could not personally replicate the work of geological and natural-hazard specialists.

The lawyer also said Giacometti did not know about an email exchange between the cantonal office and an external geologist several days before the rockslide. The correspondence had raised the possibility of closing the trails. According to the defence, the former mayor therefore acted without knowledge of that exchange and could not have incorporated it into her decision.

The argument challenges the prosecution’s attempt to link the mayor directly to the deaths. Her lawyer said municipal authorities must be able to rely on expert advice. He also stressed that executive decisions are taken collectively, rather than by a mayor acting alone. Giacometti later travelled to Bondo with a municipal employee after the disaster to warn residents and urge them to leave the area.

The forest ranger’s lawyer also sought an acquittal. Prosecutors accuse the municipal forest ranger of underestimating the danger and failing to recommend that the footpaths be closed, despite an alleged duty of care. His lawyer disputed that assessment and said the ranger did not possess the specialist expertise required to predict a rockfall.

The defence extended the same argument to the cantonal employees charged in the case. One lawyer criticised what he described as a “lack of differentiation” in the indictment, saying the prosecution had not sufficiently separated the duties and knowledge of each accused person.

Another defence lawyer argued that responsibility for the safety of the hiking trails rested with the municipality of Bregaglia. In this account, the cantonal Office for Forests and Natural Hazards supplied technical data but did not decide whether local paths should close. The defence therefore rejects a chain of responsibility that would make every official involved in hazard monitoring accountable for the final outcome.

The competing positions expose a practical difficulty in Swiss mountain communities. Municipalities manage local infrastructure and public access, while cantonal agencies provide specialist assessments. The trial must determine how those roles operated in Bregaglia in August 2017, and whether any defendant failed to act on a duty that the law clearly assigned.

The court is weighing decisions made before a disaster that killed eight people. The defence has framed the case around residual risk, the limits of geological forecasting and the authority of municipal executives. Its lawyers say none of the defendants had the specific expertise or control needed to prevent the hikers’ deaths.

That position directly contests the prosecution’s request for suspended fines and its allegations of negligent homicide. It also places the canton and municipality in opposing positions over the meaning of their technical and public-safety roles. The defence criticised the canton’s claim that it was not responsible for recommendations, while arguing that the municipality could not independently evaluate complex geological danger.

The verdict will matter beyond Bregaglia. Swiss Alpine municipalities regularly depend on cantonal specialists, external geologists and hazard-monitoring systems when deciding whether to restrict access. A ruling that assigns criminal responsibility could affect how officials document advice, communicate uncertainty and act when experts identify a possible threat without issuing a clear closure recommendation.

The proceedings continue before the Maloja Regional Court. Four defendants previously refused to testify, according to an earlier Swissinfo report. The court will now assess the evidence, the division of duties and the decisions recorded before the Bondasca Valley rockslide.