The owner of Palumbo Shipyard, Antonio Palumbo, and his son, Raffaele Palumbo, have been sentenced to six months in prison by a Sicilian court. The case, decided in a Messina court, was related to the disposal of hazardous chemical waste.

In total, seven people were found guilty by the court last week, after it found that they had facilitated the illegal disposal of waste generated by sandblasting between 2011 and 2013.

Mario Fierro was sentenced to two years in prison, Giuseppe Costa was sentenced to one year and ten months, Santi Scopellitia and Raffaele Donnarumma were sentenced to four years and two months, and Salvatoru Croce was sentenced to three years.

The Palumbo family took over the running of the Malta Shipyard back in 2010. They also own a super yacht facility in Cospicua.

The Malta Independent is informed that Palumbo’s lawyers will be appealing the sentence.

The lawyers said it was “hard to understand what prompted this sentence,” adding that the judgment was “objectively unacceptable.”

“While prosecutors failed to prove a single one of their accusations, we presented documents detailing the entire series of events and which proved there was no illegal dumping.”

The lawyers said the company had proved, with documented evidence, that no illegal waste disposal had taken place.

It had clearly emerged in court, they said, that Palumbo did not carry out sandblasting work, but had contracted authorised companies to carry out that task. It had also emerged that these subcontracted companies were responsible for the disposal of the waste. Furthermore, these residues were non-hazardous and were disposed of at authorised plants.

A company spokesperson said the Malta shipyard operations were unaffected by this development.