Former head of Italian road operator convicted over deadly 2018 bridge collapse
An Italian court on Thursday convicted the former chief executive of Italian road operator Autostrade per l’Italia over the deadly collapse of Genoa’s road bridge that killed 43 people nearly eight years ago.
Giovanni Castellucci received a 12-year sentence after four years of trial and four hours of deliberations.
He was among dozens of defendants convicted over the collapse, which revealed serious lapses in the maintenance of Italian infrastructure.
On the morning of August 14, 2018, a 650ft section of Genoa’s Morandi road bridge gave way during a storm, sending dozens of vehicles plunging to the ground.
Images of the collapsed bridge were seen around the world and shocked Italians on one of Italy’s busiest travel days, as millions headed out for the traditional August 15 Ferragosto holiday that marks the peak summer holiday season.
The 57 defendants include former executives of road operator Autostrade per L’Italia, experts from its engineering company SPEA and former officials from Italy’s infrastructure and transport ministry.
Most face charges, including negligent disaster and multiple counts of manslaughter stemming from alleged failures to maintain the bridge, which was part of a main route linking northern Italy with the French Riviera.
Prosecutors argued that years of maintenance neglect led to the collapse, and demanded combined sentences totaling nearly 400 years for all of the defendants.
The defendants deny wrongdoing and say the fault was caused by a construction defect.
The verdicts and sentencing will cap a trial that spanned more than 280 hearings over four years.
“I think it is important that responsibility extends beyond those at the top. Autostrade, SPEA and the transport ministry all had roles to play. I hope the state’s responsibility also emerges clearly,” Egle Possetti, who heads a committee to preserve the memory of the bridge victims, told reporters outside court.
“I lost my sister, her two children, my brother-in-law and even their little dog. That’s where my determination comes from, to make sure they receive justice and that their deaths were not in vain,” she said.
“Our expectation is to feel our pain recognised and to have it acknowledged that this did not happen by chance, but because of serious failures in maintenance,” said Raffaele Caruso, one of the lawyers representing victims.
Considered an engineering marvel when it opened in 1967, the Morandi featured three A-shaped concrete pylons and concrete-encased stay cables.
Mr Caruso, who represents the family members of three victims, said that the trial showed that warning signs about defects in the pylon that collapsed had existed for decades.
He cited maintenance on the other two starting in 1993 that was never extended to the third.
“From 1993 onward, the problem was known. We had three identical pylons. Two had already shown the same defect, and no-one seriously asked whether the third one had it as well,” Mr Caruso said.
The current Autostrade chief executive, Arrigo Giana, issued a public apology on Thursday in an open letter published in major Italian dailies.
“The actions and decisions of some people left indelible scars,’’ said Mr Giana, who joined Autostrade last year.
“Offering today the apology that was not made then is, for us, a moral imperative that goes beyond establishing legal responsibility and the course of justice toward the truth.”
Autostrade and its subsidiary reached a deal on corporate liability earlier in the proceedings, paying roughly 30 million euros (£25.5 million) in financial penalties.
The agreement spared the companies from a trial as corporate defendants and potentially much harsher sanctions, including exclusion from public contracts.
The settlements were reached after the companies adopted new compliance procedures aimed at preventing similar accidents, and after victims were compensated.
A new bridge designed by Genoa-born Italian architect Renzo Piano opened in 2020, spanning a memorial to the victims of the Morandi bridge collapse.
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