An Italian Court of Appeal on Monday overturned the convictions for manslaughter that were handed down on seven scientists and former government officials over the 2009 earthquake in the city of L'Aquila, Italian media reported.

The defendants were sentenced to six years each in jail by a first grade court in October 2012, for issuing a misleading reassuring statement just before the earthquake.

The Court of Appeal in L'Aquila reversed the verdict, after some six hours of deliberation. It fully cleared six defendants of the offence "because the facts do not back it up," considering article 530 of the Italian penal code.

A seventh defendant, civil defense official Bernardo De Bernardinis, was also acquitted from the main charges for lack of evidence, but convicted to two years in jail for some minor ones, with the sentence suspended by the judge.

All the seven scientists and officials were members of the National Commission for Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks at the time of the earthquake.

Among them were former Head of the Commission Franco Barberi, former President of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) Enzo Boschi, and former Director of the National Earthquake Center Giulio Selvaggi.

According to the court, the seven people would have been responsible for issuing an inaccurate reassuring statement just six days before the 6.3-magnitude quake that struck L'Aquila on April 6, 2009, killing 309 people and leaving some 1,500 others injured and thousands more homeless.

While they were culpable for having carried out a superficial evaluation of the danger and provided "inaccurate, incomplete, and contradictory information" about the risk of a series of tremors that had preceded the major quake for months, causing alarm among residents in L'Aquila, according to the first grade judge.

The defense lawyers always maintained there was no way for their clients to better predict such a major event, and expressed satisfaction after the acquittal on Monday.

"The appeal sentence is rewarding because our arguments have been accepted," lawyer Franco Coppi told ANSA news agency.

The acquittal of the defendants sparked instead angry reactions from several dozens of residents, who had gathered in the court waiting for the verdict.

Chief prosecutor Romolo Como said he had expected a possible reduction of the convictions, but not an acquittal. "In this way all the blame is put on one person only, which means on the civil defense official," Como commented after the verdict.

L'Aquila trial had also raised discussions within the international scientific community since the beginning, with some analysts expressing fears that science itself might be "under judgment."

They said the first grade conviction might have set a dangerous precedent and possibly dissuaded other experts from making a risk assessment in similar cases for fear of legal retribution.

Como specifically responded to this in his final argument on Monday. He stressed that "negligence, and not science" was on trial in this case, and the defendants had never been pursued for "failing to predict" a quake, but for giving falsely reassuring information about the possible danger of the tremors.

In addition to the victims, the earthquake of 2009 destroyed most of the historical center of L'Aquila and caused damage estimated in some 10 billion euros (12.4 billion U.S. dollars). Endi

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