Francesco Schettino, captain of the sunken Costa Concordia, was sentenced to 16 years in prison last night after being convicted of manslaughter by an Italian court.
Schettino was at the helm of the 950ft-long cruise ship when it smashed into a reef near Giglio Island in January 2012, killing 32 people.
Some of the victims were trapped inside the ship or sucked beneath it after hurling themselves into the ice-cold water, says the Daily Telegraph.
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Schettino, who was vilified as a coward in Italy, was accused of abandoning ship, causing a maritime disaster and multiple counts of manslaughter.
The 54-year-old denied all charges and is expected to appeal the verdict. In an emotional final appeal to the judge, at the end of the 19-month trial, the captain said that all the responsibility had been "loaded" onto him "with no respect for the truth or for the memory of the victims".
Here is what each side argued during his trial:
Prosecution
Prosecutors said there was a "tsunami of evidence" against Schettino proving his responsibility for the tragedy, which was on a "Titanic" scale. They urged the judges to jail the captain for 26 years, claiming that his decisions were directly responsible for the deaths of 32 people. He was accused of bungling a sail-past of Giglio in an attempt to impress passengers and members of the crew. His decision to then delay the order to abandon ship was the direct cause of 32 deaths, said the prosecution. The captain is also accused of trying to offload his responsibilities on others and of abandoning the ship before many passengers had been saved. Prosecutor Alessandro Leopizzi said survivors who staggered onto the shore of Giglio Island were startled to see Schettino already safe on land without even getting his feet wet.
Defence
Schettino's lawyers claimed the captain actually saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives by manoeuvring the ship close to shore before it capsized. "If he had given the order to abandon ship right away, a kilometre from the coast, the ship would have been uncontrollable," his attorney Domenico Pepe told the court. "Not all the lifeboats would have reached the water intact. More than 4,000 people could have died." The defence said their client had been made a scapegoat and that other officers should have been tried alongside him. They repeatedly denied that he had abandoned his ship, saying he was thrown off the vessel as it capsized. "His decision ensured that the vast majority were saved," said Pepe. "He is not an armchair sailor. He knew how to read the winds and the currents."
