ROME — An Italian court on Thursday sentenced former Atlantia CEO Giovanni Castellucci to 12 years in prison over the deadly 2018 collapse of a motorway bridge in the northwestern port city of Genoa.
Atlantia was the controlling shareholder in motorway operator Autostrade per l’Italia (Aspi) at the time of the disaster which killed 43 people when their vehicles plunged from the flyover.
Prosecutors had asked for a far longer jail term for Castellucci, ex-chief executive of Aspi.
The motorway bridge running through the city came down in a rain storm at the height of the holiday season, sending cars and lorries plummeting to the ground.
Relatives of the victims packed the court to hear the outcome of a case that has become a search for accountability for the disaster and a symbol of the slow pace of justice in complex Italian criminal proceedings.
Under the Italian legal system, the first instance ruling can be appealed at least twice.
Castellucci, who is already serving a six-year jail term for a 2013 road disaster, was one of 57 defendants on trial in Genoa. Another top motorway official, Michele Donferri Mitelli, has been given 11 years in jail.
Emmanuel Diaz, whose brother Henry died in the bridge collapse told Italian TV he was “very satisfied” with the verdict, while Egle Possetti, whose sister and her family were all killed, said she thought the 12-year term handed to Castellucci was “acceptable”.
Castelucci was not in court to hear the verdicts, read out by Judge Paolo Lepri. The former number two at the motorway operator, Paolo Berti, was handed a five-and-a half-year jail term, seven years less than prosecutors had sought.
In total, prosecutors had asked for the 57 defendants to be given 400 years in jail for failing to maintain the viaduct, which was built by Riccardo Morandi in 1967.
All the defendants had denied doing anything wrong.
While prosecutors had argued that maintenance of the ageing structure had been repeatedly delayed and that warning signs had been ignored, defence lawyers blamed the disaster on a design flaw, and the fact that a specific cable was encased in concrete.
Among the defendants on trial were engineers from the maintenance firm Spea and former officials from both the transport ministry and the Aspi motorway operator’s parent company Atlantia.
Spea’s former chief executive, Antonino Galatà, was given a five-and-a-half year prison term, while Mauro Coletta, the former top official in charge of the ministry’s motorway directorate, received five years.
On the eve of the trial, the current head of Aspi, Arrigo Giana, made his company’s first public apology for the bridge collapse, saying that “the actions and decisions of some people left indelible scars”.
Source: Saudi Gazette