Costa Concordia Captain Schettino goes on trial

[Neptune]

The captain of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, which ran aground off Italy, is due to go on trial on Tuesday.

Capt Francesco Schettino, 52, faces charges of multiple manslaughter and abandoning ship.

Thirty-two people died when the ship hit a rock off the Tuscan island of Giglio in January 2012 and then tipped onto its side.

The start of the trial is threatened by a scheduled national strike by lawyers.

Capt Schettino has been accused of leaving the luxury liner before all of the 4,229 passengers were taken off, and steering the ship too fast and too close to the shore.

He was allegedly performing a risky night-time sail-past salute to people on the tiny island of Giglio.

The ship was holed by rocks on the left-hand side causing the ship to list, as passengers dined on the first night of the cruise.

A chaotic and disorganised evacuation ensued. By the time the order to evacuate came, the ship was listing so far to one side that many lifeboats could not be used.

Capt Schettino denies the charges, and his defence is expected to argue that no single person was to blame for the accident.

He claims his manoeuvring of the ship closer to shore saved lives.

Lawyers' strike

Mr Schettino is expected in court on Tuesday in Grosseto, a city 90 miles (145km) north-west of Rome which is nearest to the site of the wreck.

However, the trial could be delayed by a week if his lawyers observe a national strike scheduled to start on Tuesday.

Four other crew members and the head of the crisis unit of Costa Cruises have entered plea bargains which will be ruled on in a separate hearing later this month.

In addition to the hundreds of survivors seeking compensation, the local authorities in Giglio are hoping for at least 80m euros (£68m; $105m) to make up for alleged lost revenue and the eyesore that has been on its shoreline for more than a year.

Up to 430 witnesses and 250 plaintiffs could be called during Capt Schettino's trial, the AFP news agency reports.

His lawyers say he faces a maximum 20 years in jail if found guilty.

The Costa Concordia still lies partially submerged off the coast of Giglio while salvage crews work to refloat it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23234637

Do you think he is guilty? If so, what should his punishment be?

[Walter Powers]

How can we know? If we're assuming things, it defeats the purpose of a trial. Just like with the Zimmerman trial, we don't know the facts yet so how can we know if he's guilty?

[SosbanFach]

From what I've heard, he sounds completely guilty. He acted out of cowardice, and in the small hours of the morning, when his passengers were struggling to free themselves from the ship which he wrecked in his pointless attempt to show off, he himself had checked into a hotel. He, for better or worse, was in charge of that ship, and had a legal (not to mention moral) duty to see to safety as many passengers as possible. He ought to have been on board and conducting the evacuation of the vessel. Furthermore, having deviated wildly from the set course, and torn the vessel open on the rocks, what on earth merited a delay of 45 minutes in announcing it a distress situation? That seems, from the little I know, to be a wild demonstration of poor judgement, and without that delay, lives could probably have been saved.

His defence for going to land was that he 'slipped' and fell into a lifeboat, which then, we can only assume, took him to shore before he had the opportunity to protest and point out his duties. Thankfully, I don't imagine that even the (somewhat corrupt) Italian judicial system will accept that version of events.