Schettino lawyers cite Cemortan

(ANSA) - Grosseto, October 20 - Defence attorneys for former Costa Concordia captain Francesco Schettino on Monday filed two complaints against Schettino's former lover, Moldavian dancer Domnica Cemortan.
    The attorneys claimed Cemortan slandered her ex and perjured herself when she said Schettino told her a helicopter was coming to save him from the sinking ship after it ran aground off Tuscany's Giglio Island in January 2012, killing 32.
    Cemortan also suggested Schettino had a "mysterious object" taken away on the night of disaster.
    Dubbed "Captain Coward" by the media for allegedly abandoning ship without overseeing the evacuation, Schettino is the only person standing criminal trial over the disaster after State prosecutors last year rejected a plea bargain offer from him to accept a jail term of three years and five months.
    But they accepted the pleas to suspended sentences of five other officials, including four ship's officers and the crisis coordinator of the vessel's owners, Costa Cruises.
    Costa agreed to pay a one-million-euro fine to settle potential criminal charges last April.