Italian Court Rejects Concordia Captains Appeal, Confirms Sentence

Ship Recycling Consortium An Italian appeals court has upheld a 16-year prison sentence for the former captain of the ill-fated cruise ship Costa Concordia, Francesco Schettino, according to Reuters. In late April, Schettinos legal team and the prosecution launched appeals against the sentence ordered by an Italian court in February 2015. The former captain tried to overturn the conviction, while the prosecution claimed that Schettino should have received 26 years of prison time due to his role in the grounding  of the cruise ship in January 2012. Schettino was sentenced for multiple manslaughter, causing of shipwreck and abandoning ship while his passengers and crew were still onboard. The Grosseto-based court sentenced Schettino to 10 years for the deaths of 32 people; five years for causing the shipwreck, one year for abandoning ship, and one month for giving false information to maritime authorities about the gravity of the grounding. Prosecutors claimed that the main reason for the death of 32 people on board the cruise ship was the captain’s failure to promptly order an evacuation. The grounding of the cruise ship, which was carrying 4,252 people at the time, is believed to had been caused by the captain’s recklessness, as the ship sailed too close to the Giglio island where it got stuck and later collapsed. World Maritime News Staff