FRANCESCO SCHETTINO, the captain of the luxury liner Costa Concordia which ran aground off the Tuscan island of Giglio last January with the loss of 32 lives, was in court yesterday in Grosseto for the reopening of pre-trial hearings into the shipwreck.
Capt Schettino, who was ridiculed worldwide for reportedly abandoning the sinking ship long before many of his passengers, made no comment to the media before entering the court by a side entrance.
Later in court, Capt Schettino exchanged a brief greeting with Luciano Castro, a survivor of the shipwreck .
The two men shook hands as Capt Schettino expressed the hope that the “truth would be ascertained” in court. Capt Schettino recently filed a lawsuit against the Costa Crociere company for wrongful dismissal, calling for both back pay and reinstatement.
Along with at least eight others, including ship’s officers and officials from the Costa Crociere company, Capt Schettino is expected to be indicted for multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and premature abandoning of a ship. No date has yet been fixed for the trial proper but it will almost certainly not begin until the new year.
This week’s closed door hearings are scheduled to consider a report by a four-man panel of marine experts who have analysed the ship’s black box as well as the ship’s records, maps and computer hard disks.
Given that the ship did not sink but ran aground, listing at an 80 degree angle, much vital digital and paper documentation was recovered. The hearings are being held in Grosseto’s Teatro Moderno, converted into a courtroom for the occasion. Tight security arrangements are in place around the makeshift courthouse with neither journalists nor the public allowed near the theatre.
The hearings, which could last all week, will consider a vast body of evidence, including not only the experts’ report but also police and survivors’ testimony.
Questions to be addressed include: Just why did Schettino opt for his ill-fated “sail by” too close to the island? Was there a delay in sounding the “Abandon Ship” thus causing extra loss of life? Did the captain really abandon ship before his passengers because, as he claimed, he had “fallen into” a lifeboat by mistake? Who was at the helm when the ship first hit the rocks off Giglio?
In the meantime, the wreck of the Concordia is still stuck just yards from the Giglio coastline. The Italo-American Titan Micoperi salvage team is preparing a massive recovery operation. It will refloat the ship and tow it away for destruction some time next year.