Schettino (left) and his lawyer Pepe are seen after a session of the trial in the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster yesterday in Grossetto.
DPA/Rome
Captain Francesco Schettino appeared yesterday before a court in Grosseto, Italy, at the start of pre-trial hearings on last year’s deadly Costa Concordia shipwreck.
Schettino – who did not speak to reporters – faces numerous charges, including multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, abandoning ship and lack of co-operation with maritime authorities.
A judge is due to examine whether the charges are solid enough to warrant a trial and handle plaintiff applications from parties looking to be compensated.
Authorities from Giglio, the small island close to where the Concordia disaster took place, are seeking at least 80mn euros ($105mn) in damages, while survivors are demanding 500,000 euros each in compensation.
Hearings are expected to continue until July, Giuliano Leuzzi, a lawyer from a consumer association representing some of the survivors, said.
With the next pre-trial hearing scheduled for tomorrow, a possible trial could take years before reaching a final verdict.
Schettino’s lawyer, Francesco Pepe, said his client had been made “a scapegoat” and insisted that the Concordia’s owners, Costa Crociere, should bear the brunt of the responsibility for the disaster.
“It is getting more and more clear that he is a man who has had an accident at work, he should not be criminalised,” Pepe said.
The Concordia cruise ship hit rocks and ran aground off Giglio on January 13, 2012, after it was steered dangerously close to the coast.
Of its 4,229 passengers, 32 died. Two bodies are still missing.
There are five other defendants in the case – four crew members, including an Indonesian helmsman who is said to have misunderstood Schettino’s orders on the night of the disaster – and a Costa Crociere manager.
“We have proven that Schettino had ordered the ship to be kept at a distance of 1km from the rocks, the helmsman made a mistake,” Pepe told reporters.
Last week, charges against Costa Concordia, a subsidiary of US-based Carnival Corporation, were dropped after it entered into a plea bargain agreement to pay a 1mn-euro fine.
Prosecutors had accused Costa’s senior management of having hesitated before declaring a full emergency on the night of the Concordia shipwreck in a bid to safeguard the company’s reputation.
Costa now wants to be admitted as a plaintiff and be compensated for the loss of the cruise ship.
Leuzzi said he would oppose that request during the pre-trial hearings.
Costa Crociere and Carnival are also facing lawsuits in Italy and the US, with Costa Crociere lawyer Alessandro Carella saying “about 30” survivors had turned to the courts to ask for damages, while a compensation deal was reached with 80% of people onboard.
