Nairobi/Abidjan, Ivory Coast - An Ivory Coast court handed down prison sentences to two men accused of dumping toxic waste and causing 17 deaths, news reports said Thursday. The defendants were found guilty of dumping hundreds of tons of toxic waste in Abidjan in 2006, the BBC reported. They were sentenced to 20 and five years. Seven other defendants were acquitted.
The prosecution had demanded life imprisonment for the main defendant, Salomon Ugborugo, a Nigerian official from the local company Tommy, which the Dutch multinational Trafigura contracted to dispose of 500 tons of liquid chemical waste from the oil industry.
However, the waste was simply dumped in the port town of Abidjan, where 17 people died and up to 100,000 were poisoned by breathing toxic fumes.
The second convicted defendant, Essoin Kouao, who worked as a shipping agent at the Port of Abidjan and had recommended Tommy to Trafigura, was found guilty of complicity in the poisoning and received a five-year prison term.
Part of the waste remains around the Ivory Coast's largest city. Residents still complain about symptoms and suspect that the effects of Africa's biggest toxic waste scandal are responsible for birth defects.
Trafigura, which has never admitted any liability, paid the West African nation about 220 million dollars in an out-of-court settlement in February 2007.
