In accidents of
such magnitude, there are Heroes and Villains.
The Coast Guard Captain who
furiously ordered the skipper of the Costa Concordia to return to his ship and
oversee the rescue operations was hailed while the Captain was vilified and
branded as a coward for fleeing in the face of adversity. There
were reports of Italian investigators
probing the mystery young Moldovan woman reportedly on the bridge of the cruise
ship when it smashed into rocks off the coast of Giglio island. She was stated to be a
25-year-old blonde, invited onto
the bridge as the cruise liner sailed perilously close to Giglio, in what was
apparently a ‘salute’ to an old friend of the captain’s and a favour to the
ship’s head waiter, whose family were from the island. Adding to the mystery, she reportedly was not on the official list of passengers and
crews.
Many months later, the Cruise liner
began its final voyage away from the tiny Italian island where it capsized on
January 13, 2012 salvaged by experts. Now comes the
news that the Captain of the ill-fated ship has been sentenced to 16 years in
jail on manslaughter charges. Francesco Schettino, dubbed 'Captain Coward'
after he fled the ship before the 4,200 passengers were safely ashore, was
handed the sentence this evening in Grosseto, Tuscany. The 54-year-old was
given ten years for manslaughter, five for causing a shipwreck, one for
abandoning ship, and a further month for giving false information to port
authorities. His lawyers had launched a last-minute appeal yesterday attempting
to blame the rest of the crew for the accident, but their attempts failed.
Judges were told
that Schettino fled the ship and was discovered by shiver passengers waiting on
shore 'without even getting his feet wet'. He tried to argue he fell into a
lifeboat by accident. The verdict and
sentencing brought an end to a trial that has been running since July 2013. Earlier the court had heard that Schettino was
a 'reckless idiot' who had been showing off to a waiter on board the ship, and
a friend on Giglio island, when he steered the ship close to the shore on the
night of January 13. Judges were also
told that after the ship hit rocks, causing a tear in its hull which caused it
to tip over on one side, the evacuation was delayed chaotic. Some of the ship's
lifeboats were not deployed, while few instructions were given by the crew,
judges heard.
The former
captain's lawyers had argued that he delayed the evacuation because of the wind
conditions, and did not use some of the lifeboats as they had not taken part in
an inspection several months previous. A panel of three judges found Schettino
guilty of manslaughter and sentenced him to 16 years and one month in jail. Schettino was not in court for the verdict
although earlier in the day he had made an impassioned appeal. His lawyers said
he was at his apartment with a fever. Each
of the 110 civil plaintiffs, crammed into a theater where the trial is being
held to accommodate them, will receive 30,000 Euros (£23,000) each, while
300,000 Euros (£230,000) will go to the island of Giglio and the region of
Tuscany. The company was fined 1 million
euros in 2013 by a judge in Tuscany.
Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 26 years in
prison for Schettino, who admitted some responsibility as captain of the ship
but denied blame for deaths that occurred during the evacuation. But despite the guilty verdict today,
Schettino remains a free man and still has the right to two legal appeals which
can take years to process, meaning he may never see the inside of a cell.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
13th Feb
2015.
PS : inputs acknowledged from www.dailymail.co.uk and host of other websites.
