Court hears how 32 died in Italy shipwreck

  • Article by: ANDREW MEDICHINI
  • Associated Press
  • July 17, 2013 - 5:05 PM


A court official read out the names of the deceased passengers and crew members, and described how each one died, quoting verbatim from the indictment of the Concordia's captain, Francesco Schettino. The veteran Italian mariner is the sole defendant in the trial, which is being held in a theater in the Tuscan town of Grosseto.

Schettino is charged with manslaughter, causing the January 2012 shipwreck off the Tuscan island of Giglio, and abandoning ship with "hundreds of passengers and crew still aboard, unable to care for themselves or in need of coordination as the ship's tilt increased," the official said.

The Concordia, on a week-long Mediterranean cruise, speared a jagged granite reef when, prosecutors allege, Schettino steered the ship too close to Giglio's rocky shores as a favor to a crewman whose relatives live on the island.



The reading of the list of the victims began with the death of a Frenchman, Francis Servel, who "not having found a place on the lifeboat, threw himself into the sea without a life vest." He was "sucked toward the bottom of the whirlpool produced by the final flipping over on the right side of the ship, and then died due to asphyxiation."

Shortly after the tragedy, survivors recounted how Servel had given his wife his life vest because she didn't know how to swim.

The bodies of victims No. 31 and 32 were never found, but after a long, futile search of the ship's interior and the nearby waters, they were declared dead.

One of them was a middle-aged Italian passenger, Maria Grazia Trecarichi, who, with no place on a lifeboat, and "while waiting to be rescued" while wearing a life vest, "slid off into the sea because of the progressive tilt of the boat" and presumably drowned, the court official said, reading from the indictment.

Victim No. 32 was a Filipino waiter, Russel Terence Rebello. The court heard how the crewman "remained on the ship to carry out the lowering of the last lifeboats" and either fell or dove into the sea because of the Concordia's dramatic tilt and was presumed to have drowned.







The bid is essentially a "formality since the prosecution will tell us 'no,'" the LaPresse news agency quoted Laino as saying.

It was not immediately clear when a ruling regarding the plea bargain might come. But prosecutor Francesco Verusio told reporters during a recess that he has opposed it because of the "seriousness of the conduct of the accused."

In May, a different judge in pretrial hearings rejected Schettino's first bid for a plea bargain after the prosecution said no.




Prosecutors have alleged he deliberately guided the ship dangerously close to the island's rocky coast. The maneuver "was a favor that the commander, Schettino, wanted to do" for a crew member whose family lives on Giglio "so they could watch an ultra-close passage (of the Concordia) near the coast," Verusio told reporters outside the courtroom.

Some of the 4,200 passengers and crew members who were aboard the Concordia said Schettino shouldn't be the only person tried.

"Frankly, I'm not angry with Schettino," said Gianluca Gabrielli, a 33-year-old Roman who is a surviving passenger. "I'm angry with the whole crew. They were smiling at the beginning, but when they realized that there was danger, they escaped, abandoning us," Gabrielli said outside the Grosseto theater, which is serving as a makeshift courtroom to allow more space for the public.








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