In May, the Italian will be able to go out during the day to work
The ship sank 10 years ago.
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January 13 marks the 10th anniversary of the Costa Concordia cruise off the coast of Giglio in Tuscany, killing 32 people. Captain Francesco Sketino, now 61, is the only person serving a prison sentence. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison for causing a shipwreck, killing many people and causing extensive damage.
In just a few months, however, the Italian will be given the right to take advantage of alternative measures to prison. This is due by law to the convicts after the expiration of 1/3 of the sentence. To many, all this may seem absurd, given that
it is Sketino
reasons with
your actions
the catastrophe
and, on top of that, he escaped from the sinking ship before the passengers and staff had left.
However, the captain is a prisoner for example in the Roman “Rebibia”, where he is serving his sentence. On May 17, he will be able to ask to go out during the day to work.
“People may not believe it, but I have my nightmares. I have not forgotten the 32 victims. However, I do not forget that I was the only one who was treated like a scapegoat, “the captain told the Stampa newspaper these days.
Captain Sketino is still awaiting a response from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which asked him to review the trial four years ago. He is being followed by psychologists as he continues to experience that night and its victims. According to lawyer Donato Laino, the captain still cannot accept the fact that he is the only one imprisoned for what happened.
“The truth is that the shipwreck was the result of an organizational error. The aim of justice was to find the culprit, not the truth “, added the defender.
The captain is also considered
victim of
the media process,
who, according to him, had convicted him before the court. So now he is trying to overcome and understand what happened, following two university courses in the Roman prison – law and journalism.
However, Sketino has not yet answered the question why he left the ship before the others and did not organize the rescue operations.
The prison priest describes the captain as a very polite and considerate man, showing respect for the other cellmates. He does his best not to waste his time behind bars, but to fill them with training. Sketino is also dedicated to sports in the gym, reading books in English. He also collaborates with the prison newspaper.
His only joys are the meetings with his daughter Rosella, which have recently resumed. Because of the pandemic
in continuation
every 500 days
prisoners
they could not
to see
outsiders
“From the first moment, my father was left alone on the ship’s bridge, where the whole team did not take on the role,” Rosella told Stampa.
“It was an extremely difficult and exciting process. Considering the other levels of the court, the sentence was perfect. It was confirmed at all instances. When you judge, you have to “undress” from all emotional aspects. “Sketino, I have never felt sorry for him and he was not the scapegoat as someone is trying to make him out,” Judge Giovanni Puliati told the Nacional newspaper. He still remembers many exciting moments during the trial.
“The most shocking was the one when we were trying to find out exactly how little Diana died. Witness Mario Pellegrini, who was also deputy mayor at the time, told how he ran from person to person to save people who had fallen into a corridor that had turned into a well. At one point, however, his story came to a halt, as if it had evaporated from his head at some point. The prosecutor urged him to try to remember well what had happened. Only then did he tell how he saw the girl disappear into the water. Her father jumped off the rope and jumped into the water to look for her. No one saw them again, they found them dead and hugged. “
Just a month ago, Costa Crociere, the company that owned the sunken ship, was ordered to pay 92,000 euros in compensation for the constant stress and mental disorder received by one of the surviving passengers after the shipwreck. This was the decision of the court in Genoa, which recognized that Ernesto Carusotti had received post-traumatic stress.
This is a very important victory for Kodacons, the consumer protection association, which believes that the shipwrecked on January 13, 2012, was not fairly compensated for the moral damage. According to Carusotti, he continues to experience the stress of the nightmare.
A blow to underwater rocks killed 32 people on board the ship
The Costa Concordia departs from the port of Civitavecchia, to Rome, in the direction of Savona, Liguria. This is the last stage of his cruise, which should reach the Tuscan archipelago, near the island of Giglio. The ship gets too close to it, trying to make a “bow”, as sailor slang says, to show the beauties of the island from the closest possible angle.
However, the huge vessel hit underwater rocks, which led to the opening of a 70-meter crack on its left side. The impact caused the navigation to be abruptly interrupted, to sway sharply on the Costa Concordia and to land on an underwater cliff near the shore north of the port of Giglio. Part of the ship is sinking.
On February 11, 2015, Captain Sketino was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Both he and Costa Crochiere were ordered to pay 1.5m euros in damages from the Ministry of the Environment, 1m euros from the Council of Ministers, 500m euros from the Ministry of Defense, the Infrastructure and of Civil Defense, 300 thousand euros from the municipality of the island of Giglio, as well as many other amounts to compensate the victims, their relatives and the survivors of the shipwreck.
Earlier, Costa Crociere had already compensated 2,623 passengers and 906 crew members with 85m euros.
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