£840,000 fine over danger waste scandal

Prosecutors had asked for a fine of two million euros.

Amsterdam District Court judge Frans Bauduin also convicted a Trafigura employee for his role in the 2006 scandal and the Ukranian captain of the Probo Koala, the ship that carried the waste.

Toxic waste made thousands ill in the Ivory Coast capital, Abidjan, in August 2006, although Trafigura insists the waste from the Probo Koala could not have caused serious illness.

The verdict is the first time Trafigura has been convicted in the scandal.

The company, based in Lucerne, Switzerland, has consistently denied any wrongdoing in the case. But it paid 157 million euros to Ivory Coast to help clean up the waste and another 40 million euros to victims in a British settlement this year.

Under the British settlement, lawyers agreed the waste could only have caused minor ailments. But the UN's top expert on toxic waste, Okechukwu Ibeanu, said in 2009 "it is clear that there is a direct and indirect connection" between the waste and 100,000 illnesses and 16 deaths that Ivory Coast attributed to the pollution.

At the criminal trial in Amsterdam last month, prosecutors accused Trafigura of putting profits ahead of safety by hiding hazardous waste in a ship that docked in Amsterdam in 2006 and then exporting it illegally. The waste was later dumped in Ivory Coast in what became a major environmental scandal.

The Judge said Trafigura chose to dump the waste cheaply in Ivory Coast "for commercial reasons".

The company employed in Abidjan charged $35 per ton of waste, while in Amsterdam it would have cost almost $1,000 per ton, the court said.

The company said it would study the verdicts "with a view to appeal".

"While Trafigura is pleased to have been acquitted of the charge of forgery it is disappointed by the judges' ruling on the other two (charges], which it believes to be incorrect," it said in a statement.

Trafigura lawyer Michael Wladimiroff said the conviction for exporting waste to Ivory Coast was based on the court's decision to apply an incorrect waste management treaty.

Trafigura argued that the Marine Pollution Treaty applied and that under that treaty it was legal to export the waste to Ivory Coast. The court decided a different treaty applied.

In Ivory Coast, where almost 30,000 victims and their families received $1,500 compensation in March, the ruling was greeted as a moral victory.

"Finally, Trafigura has been called out in a court of law," said Eliance Kouassi, president of the National Federation of Toxic Waste Victims in Ivory Coast. "It's a real victory for us."

Amsterdam District Court also convicted Trafigura employee Naeem Ahmed for leading the effort to dump the waste "while its dangerous nature was concealed." He was fined 25,000 euros and given a six-month suspended sentence.

Ship's captain Sergiy Chertov, also was sentenced to a five-month suspended prison term for the same offence and forgery, for concealing the nature of the waste in a written declaration.