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By Charlotte Pritchard BBC News
First, we have to understand limits of earthquake science. Ian Main, Professor of Seismology and Rock Physics at the University of Edinburgh, was part of an international commission on earthquake forecasting set up after L'Aquila.
He says it is possible to predict where an earthquake might happen at some point. But it is impossible accurately to predict exactly when that earthquake will happen.
"We can forecast that they're almost certain to happen with a very low probability - maybe once in 100, once in 1,000 years depending on the size of an earthquake and in a given zone. And that's a hazard that's there all the time," says Main
"There's… a one in 100 chance of a swarm ending in a larger earthquake, or a smaller earthquake triggering a bigger one. It's very rare but it does occur," he says.
In other words, 99 times out of a 100 a series of tremors will not result in a larger earthquake. In L'Aquila, of course, it did happen.
In the past in L'Aquila after a swarm of tremors some residents would leave their houses and sleep in their cars, to avoid the danger of collapsing buildings. However on this occasion comments by the authorities prompted some of those people to change their usual response and stay inside.
The Italian seismologists understood that an earthquake was unlikely but not impossible. In a press conference, however, the message seemed to be that that meant there was nothing to worry about at all. This is the falsely reassuring statement which formed part of the case against them.
The government official, Bernardo De Bernardinis - deputy chief of Italy's Civil Protection Department at the time - is reported to have advised worried residents to go home and sip a glass of wine. He even specified what kind: "Absolutely a Montepulciano."
"Communication is at the bottom of this whole case," says David Spiegelhalter, Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge University.
"The scientists met, they did a risk assessment and they concluded there was an increased risk but the absolute risk was very low. They concluded they couldn't be confident there would be an earthquake.
"However this afterwards got communicated and understood by the public as a message that they could be confident there could not be an earthquake… that's what people understood and that's what has led to this court case."
Spiegelhalter accepts that it is the responsibility of scientists to communicate risk effectively. But he fears the L'Aquila case might have damaging consequences. Could it deter scientists from offering their independent advice?
"Italy has got continuous earthquake problems. Who is going to engage with that now? It makes you wonder about the risks to scientists of engagement and being advisers."
"I was on a [government] committee once and I found I was the only person in the room who didn't have indemnity," says Spiegelhalter.
"At that point you start feeling exposed given the increasingly litigious society, and that's an awful shame."
He thinks scientists should be offered similar protection.
"It would be terrible if we started practising defensive science and the only statements we made were bland things that never actually drew one conclusion or another. But of course if scientists are worried, that's what will happen."