EUWID - Recycling and Waste Management

A Dutch court in Amsterdam has sentenced the multi-national oil and raw materials trader Trafigura Beheer BV to a fine of €1m for illegally exporting hazardous waste to the Ivory Coast and concealing the hazardous nature of the waste in the Probo Koala affair. In a statement issued after the ruling on Friday, the Court stated that both Trafigura and one of its employees had been cleared of charges that they falsified documents related to the wastes, which were later dumped at sites around Abidjan, Ivory Coast by a Trafigura contractor and linked to at least 15 deaths and around 100,000 cases of illness. An employee of Trafigura and the captain of the vessel Probo Koala received suspended jail sentences. The Dutch prosecutor had requested jail terms for the employees standing trial and a fine of €2m for Trafigura.