Former Costa Concordia captain
Francesco Schettino abandoned ship even though he knew that
several people were still on the left side of the vessel, or at
least was unsure about whether they had all been rescued, judges
that oversaw his appeals trial said.
Explaining their decision in May to uphold Schettino's
16-year sentence for the 2012 shipwreck that left 32 dead off
Tuscany's Giglio Island, the judges also said the former skipper
was not following a mapped out route at the time, and instead
was following his own "sailor's instinct...relying on his own
ability".
Schettino was in charge of the 290m-long cruise liner with
more than 4,000 passengers and crew on board when it hit rocks
off Giglio, tearing a gash in its side and causing it to slowly
capsize.
He has been dubbed 'captain coward' in the Italian media
for abandoning ship before all his passengers were evacuated in
what was Italy's worst postwar maritime disaster.
Hundreds of passengers were injured, and Concordia also
claimed the life of a Spanish diver during the salvage
operation, taking the total death toll to 33.
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