Six Italian scientists and a former government official are due to go on trial for manslaughter over the 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila.
The 6.3 magnitude quake devastated the city and killed 309 people.
Prosecutors allege the defendants gave a falsely reassuring statement before the quake after studying hundreds of tremors that had shaken the city.
The defence argues that there is no way to predict major earthquakes even in a seismically active area.
I won't condemn this out of hand as I haven't read the whole thing but at first glance it seems pretty silly - it just isn't possible to predict earthquakes accurately.
I would expect merely holding this trial will cause the number of false alarms to increase rapidly though...