Claudio Eva says ruling against him and five others for falsely reassuring statements over 2009 quake was 'eye for an eye'

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

An Italian physicist handed a six-year jail sentence for giving falsely reassuring statements over an earthquake has condemned as "medieval" the court that convicted him.

Claudio Eva, who was sentenced on Monday along with five other scientists and a government official over the earthquake in 2009 that killed more than 300 people and levelled the city of L'Aquila, said the verdict was an "eye for an eye".

The ruling by a court in the shattered city, which defied the commonly held view that earthquakes cannot be predicted, has prompted outrage from the world's scientific community.

"It was a very Italian and medieval decision," said Eva, 74, who added he had received messages of support from colleagues in the UK, elsewhere in Europe and the US. "The judge was local, the prosecutor was local and the public were local – which judge would not have been persuaded by the atmosphere?" he told the Guardian.

Fellow expert Enzo Boschi – also sentenced – who was head of Italy's national geology and volcanology institute in 2009, compared himself to Galileo, the Italian scientist who was tried by the Vatican in 1633 for claiming the Earth revolved around the sun.

On Tuesday, Luciano Maiani, head of the Italian commission that monitors seismic risk, resigned, saying: "I don't see the conditions are there for working serenely." His deputy also quit.

Stefano Gresta, the current head of the geology and volcanology institute, said: "From today on, it will be very difficult to appear in public to speak about seismic activity in Italy."

Eva said: "From what I hear, colleagues saying, no one wants to join commissions."

Alessandra Stefano, a lawyer representing Gian Michele Calvi, one of the experts convicted, said: "This verdict could lead to the continuous raising of alarms in Italy since there are so many seismic zones here."

Italy's environment minister, Corrado Clini, on Tuesday, said: "The risk is of confirming the principle that no doubt is permitted in any scientific evaluation."

The scientists sentenced – who represent the cream of Italy's earthquake experts – formed part of the seismic activity committee, known as the Major Risks Commission, in 2009. They were summoned six days before the 6 April quake by Italy's civil protection agency to consider a series of tremors in the L'Aquila area.

Prosecutors alleged they gave "incomplete, imprecise and contradictory" information on the dangers locals faced.

One of those convicted, the former deputy civil protection chief Bernardo De Bernardinis, who organised the meeting, told journalists scientists had told him "the situation was favourable".

He was also quoted as advising locals, before the meeting, to relax with a glass of good red wine. "That's just not true," he said on Tuesday. "A journalist asked me if he should have a glass of wine while awaiting the end of the meeting and I agreed."

Lawyers now await the judge's explanation of the sentencing – expected in 90 days – to find out if the group were convicted for actively playing down the risk that a quake was on the way.

The local official Stefania Pezzopane, who backed the verdict, claimed that the experts had been called in by the civil protection agency specifically to reassure people. Scientists, she said, "should be scientists and not buffoons".

"They reassured us and then we died in our homes," said a resident, Domenico Di Giamberardino.

But Eva insisted neither he nor his colleagues had given any reassurances in their brief, 40-minute meeting. "We always maintained it was not possible to predict or exclude an earthquake," he said.

With two appeals permitted under Italian law, the scientists will not be going to jail immediately, but Eva said his morale was devastated by the verdict. "I do not feel guilty from a scientific point of view," he said.

"In court the prosecutor referred to the failure in predicting hurricane Katrina, but it is a lot easier to predict a hurricane than an earthquake," he said.

L'Aquila, which still lies in ruins, was also damaged by earthquakes in 1349, 1461 and 1703. "An earthquake is like an assassin that returns to the scene of a crime after centuries," said Eva, "but you can never tell when."