Four defendants refuse to testify in Bondo landslide trial

Four of the five defendants refused to answer questions as proceedings opened on August 24, 2026, at the Maloja Regional Court in Graubünden. The trial concerns the chain of decisions surrounding the 2017 rockslide and mudslide near Bondo, which killed eight people.

The defendants include two officials from the canton, an external geologist and two representatives of the municipality of Bregaglia. Prosecutors have charged them with manslaughter. The court must now assess what officials and experts knew about the mountain’s condition, and whether the danger could have been identified before the slope gave way.

The defendants’ silence does not resolve those issues. Judges will examine documentary evidence, expert assessments and the account of the remaining defendant, alongside the material gathered during the investigation. The prosecution has asked the court to impose “an appropriate sentence” if it finds the accused guilty.

The case places a familiar Swiss challenge under legal scrutiny: how public authorities should act when scientific warnings concern a possible disaster, but the timing and scale of the threat remain uncertain.

The court is focusing on foreseeability, specifically whether the major rockslide could have been anticipated within days, weeks or months of the August 2017 disaster. That question will shape the assessment of possible negligence.

Bondo lies in the municipality of Bregaglia in southeastern Switzerland, an Alpine area where authorities must weigh geological risks against the needs of residents and visitors. A warning that a mountain is moving does not automatically establish when a collapse will occur or how far debris will travel. The trial will test how that uncertainty affected decisions by cantonal and municipal bodies, as well as the work of the external geologist.

The prosecution’s case therefore turns on more than the existence of a dangerous slope. It must establish whether the defendants had information that required a different response, and whether their conduct met the legal standard expected of them before the deaths.

The source report does not detail the individual allegations against each defendant or the evidence the prosecution will present. Those matters are expected to emerge as the Maloja court hears the case.

The 2018 investigation record has already entered the courtroom debate. One representative of the cantonal Office for Nature and the Environment made a brief statement and referred judges to a detailed report he co-authored for the Graubünden cantonal police.

He told the court that the report provided a more reliable account than his current recollection. The statement gives the judges a contemporaneous document against which later testimony and other evidence can be compared. The source does not identify the report’s conclusions or say how prosecutors and the defence intend to use each passage.

That distinction matters in a trial examining decisions made before a fast-moving natural disaster. Written assessments produced close to the investigation can record observations, warnings and professional judgments that may be difficult to reconstruct years later. The court must still determine what information reached each defendant, when it reached them and what action was reasonably required.

The proceedings come nine years after the disaster. In that time, Bondo has remained a reference point in discussions about Alpine hazards, evacuation planning and the responsibilities of authorities managing unstable terrain.

Eight people died in the 2017 disaster, and the trial now asks whether responsibility can be assigned through the criminal courts. Four defendants have chosen not to respond to the court’s questions, while one cantonal environment official has offered a limited statement about the written record.

The silence of the four accused will form part of the courtroom proceedings, but it cannot by itself establish guilt. The judges must decide the case on the evidence and determine whether the prosecution has proved manslaughter charges against each individual. The court will also have to separate institutional responsibility from the personal conduct of the officials, experts and municipal representatives on trial.

For Graubünden, the judgment could clarify how courts assess professional decisions made under geological uncertainty. For communities across the Swiss Alps, it may also sharpen attention on monitoring, public warnings and evacuation procedures when mountain slopes show signs of instability.

The source report gives no timetable for a verdict and no indication of how the defendants will respond as hearings continue. The Maloja Regional Court’s assessment of foreseeability will remain the central legal test.