By Giada Zampano
ROME--An Italian court found Capt. Francesco Schettino guilty
for his role in the cruise liner Costa Concordia's shipwreck, which
killed 32 people off the Tuscan island of Giglio three years
ago.
Capt. Schettino, the sole defendant in the 19-month trial, was
sentenced Wednesday to 16 years and one month in prison on charges
of multiple manslaughter and of abandoning the ship when many of
the 4,200 passengers and crew members were still aboard,
desperately trying to save themselves.
The shipwreck occurred on the night of Jan. 13, 2012, when the
cruise liner was steered too close to the island and smashed into a
reef. The court determined that Capt. Schettino changed the course
of the ship to perform a salute to the island, a risky move
supposed to offer a spectacle for passengers and inhabitants of
Giglio.
Prosecutors had requested that Capt. Schettino be jailed for
more than 26 years. He repeatedly denied all of the criminal
charges against him, saying that he never ordered the ship to sail
so close to Giglio and that his actions after the ship hit the
rocks helped to prevent greater losses.
On Wednesday, before the three-judge panel began deliberations,
Capt. Schettino addressed the court, saying his "head was
sacrificed" as a scapegoat to safeguard economic interests.
"That day [of the shipwreck] I also died," Capt. Schettino said,
before breaking into tears.
Capt. Schettino wasn't present when one of the three judges read
out the verdict after eight hours of deliberations.
One of Capt. Schettino's lawyers, Domenico Pepe, said he
considered the 16-year sentence excessive, but stressed that it was
lighter than the prosecutors' request. He suggested he would
consider whether to lodge an appeal once the full verdict is
published in 90 days.
The judges also banned Capt. Schettino from commanding a ship
for five years, but rejected the prosecutors' demand that he be
jailed immediately.
The court in the Tuscan city of Grosseto deliberated the fate of
Capt. Schettino alone. Five other employees of cruise company Costa
Crociere, the Carnival Corp. unit that owns the ship, were allowed
to plea bargain in exchange for lighter sentences before the trial
began in July 2013. None of them went to prison.
During the trial, prosecutors accused Capt. Schettino of
"monstrously gross negligence" and of caring only about himself,
leaving passengers and crew to fend for themselves in a chaotic
evacuation.
As they awaited the verdict, hundreds of survivors and victims'
families called for justice and hefty damages. Ahead of the judges'
decision, their lawyers insisted that additional damages should be
awarded to them by Costa Crociere. They believe the company is
partially responsible for the many errors and malfunctions after
the ship's foundering.
During the trial, it emerged that an emergency generator didn't
work, elevators didn't shut down, and some crew members didn't
speak Italian, the ship's official working language.
The judges ordered Capt. Schettino to pay part of the damages to
the victims, together with Costa Crociere. Many of the hundreds of
survivors who were represented in court will be paid compensation
damages for up to EUR30,000 ($34,000) each, less than a third of
the sums requested.
The island of Giglio was also awarded EUR300,000 in compensation
for the damage suffered, far less than the EUR300 million it
requested.
Costa Crociere's lawyer Marco De Luca said in a television
interview after the verdict that the company was satisfied with the
judges' decision.
Ahead of the verdict, Mr. De Luca had stressed that Costa
Crociere and its insurers had already paid compensation to almost
90% of the passengers and crew who were on board, for a total of
about EUR90 million ($101.6 million).
In July 2014, the Costa Concordia was refloated and towed to the
Italian port of Genoa, in a complex operation that involved over
350 engineers, divers and other specialists, who worked to
stabilize and move the cruise ship. The operation has so far cost
Costa Crociere more than $1.2 billion.
After adding the cost of cleaning the salvage area, the trip to
Genoa and the dismantling, the total bill could top $2 billion,
making it one of the largest and most expensive maritime salvage
operations in history.
Write to Giada Zampano at giada.zampano@wsj.com.
Corrections & Amplifications
The name of the Costa Concordia cruise ship was incorrectly
spelled in the headlines and summaries of an earlier version of
this article. (Feb. 11, 2015)
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