Recast: Italy's former regional governor among 47 indicted for alleged ILVA environmental disaster

Nichi Vendola, former governor of Italian southern region of Puglia, was indicted along with 46 others on Thursday for alleged crimes against the environment linked to Ilva steel plant in Taranto city, local media reported.

Overall 44 people and three companies will be tried in the case for possible environmental disaster, a judge in Taranto decided after examining the evidences gathered by prosecutors in the probe.

The trial will open before a first grade court in October, Ansa news agency reported.

According to Taranto prosecutors, all suspects would have variously contributed to influence environmental reports concerning the Ilva site, in order to minimize the scale of pollution caused by the plant and its impact on environment and public health.

The crime of environmental disaster was introduced by the Italian parliament in May within a package of new environmental crime provisions.

Vendola, who has been governing the Puglia region for 10 years until June 2015, and is also leader of the leftist SEL party, was charged with misconduct in public office for allegedly putting pressure on the head of the Regional Environmental Protection Agency (ARPA), with the aim of making the agency soften its criticism on the toxicity of Ilva emissions.

As such, the ex-governor would have helped the plant to continue its production for more than a year without cutting its emissions, despite the ARPA agency had recommended such a measure after detecting a peak of benzopyrene in the environment in 2010.

Vendola was suspected of acting in concert with former CEO of Ilva Fabio Riva, an ex-lawyer and two other former executives of the firm, who will all stand trial with the same charge.

Several local officials were also among the people indicted.

The former governor of Puglia denied any wrongdoing, saying he would "face the trial serenely and with a clear conscience, having always acted for the community's good", Sky Tg24 TV channel reported.

Ilva is the main steel producer in Italy, and Europe's leading steel plant by output capacity. Providing over 16,000 jobs around the city, it is also Taranto's main employer.

The factory near the southern city's port would be directly linked to above-level rates of cancer registered among local residents, especially in the neighborhoods closest to the steel site.

The plant started working in 1964, and became rather obsolete throughout the years. It has been partially shut several times on accusations that chemicals and industrial dust exhaled through decades were severely endangering public health.

In October 2014, the European Union (EU) urged Italy to reduce the toxic emissions of the factory, which were found exceeding the limits set by a EU directive.

The EU had already sent two formal notes to Italy, requesting the plant in Taranto to be brought in compliance with European rules.

The Ilva Company was put under special administration in 2013, after magistrates order the seizure of assets worth some 8 billion euros (8.8 billion U.S. dollars) to its owner, the Riva family.

The government took over the plant in Taranto in January 2015, with the aim of reducing its impact on human health and environment, restoring its full capacity, and selling it again to private investors within few years.

On Thursday, Matteo Renzi's cabinet also won a confidence vote in the Chamber of Deputies on the Ilva plant in Taranto.

The cabinet's bill would allow the factory to remain open despite magistrates in Taranto have ordered the closure of one of its furnaces for safety reasons, after the death of a worker in June.

The bill will have to receive a formal approval from the Lower House on Friday, before going to the Senate. Endit