Italian Appeals Court Overturns Guilty Verdicts in Earthquake Trial ROME - An appeals court on Monday cleared seven prominent Italian earthquake experts who were accused of failing to adequately warn the residents of a seismically active area in the months before a 2009 earthquake that killed more than 300 people. The court in L'Aquila, a central city that is still struggling to rebuild after the quake, overturned the defendants" 2012 conviction on manslaughter charges. The seven, all members of the National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks, had been sentenced to six years in prison and fined a total of $10.2 million plus court fees. The appeals court upheld the conviction on some charges against one of the defendants, who received a two-year suspended sentence. The 2012 convictions stunned the international scientific community, which feared that the verdicts could affect future scientific evaluations of the risks of natural disasters. But L'Aquila residents whose relatives had died had cheered the convictions because, they believed, the commission had played down the possibility of a major earthquake after a prolonged series of tremors. Spectators responded with anger and tears when the appeals sentence was read Monday, the news agency ANSA reported, with some people yelling "For shame! For shame! The details of the ruling will be made public within 90 days, and the decision is likely to be appealed to Italy's Court of Cassation.