Four years after the collapse of Italian food giant Parmalat, the main criminal trial of its executives has started but was immediately adjourned for legal arguments.
The trial is being held in a huge convention centre in the northern Italian city of Parma to allow the attendance of hundreds of angry small investors who lost their savings when the company when bust.
When it collapsed Parmalat was found to have a 14 billion euro hole in its accounts and 200,000 investors lost their money when it went bankrupt. A total of 56 people are on trial, including the company's top bosses and a number of bankers. The case has generated six million pages of documents.
Several small investors attended hoping to confront Parmalat's Founder Calisto Tanzi. One of them said: "Shame on Tanzi for his behaviour, shame on the banks, which in my opinion knew what was going on and still pushed those bonds, and shame on the law under which all this will end up as nothing."
Calisto Tanzi and other executives are facing fraudulent bankruptcy and criminal conspiracy charges and if convicted could be sentenced to up to 15 years in jail.
As well as the main trial, there are four others involving other aspects of the bankruptcy and charges against some of Parmalat's bankers. Defence lawyers have asked for them all to be rolled into one and the proceedings have been halted while the judges decide whether to grant that request. They will rule on that in May.
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