Court upholds 16-year Schettino sentence

(ANSA) - Florence, May 31 - Judges in the appeals trial of former Costa Concordia captain Francesco Schettino upheld a 16-year sentence for the 2012 shipwreck that left 32 dead off Tuscany's Giglio Island. In January 2015, Schettino was handed a 16-year prison sentence in his first-tier trial. Prosecutors had asked for 26 years, saying he should be found guilty of multiple manslaughter, abandoning ship and other charges. Schettino did not attend court on Tuesday and remained at home in Meta di Sorrento near Naples. The hearing began in the morning, with a final statement from the defence arguing for acquittal.
    The former skipper 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 island, tearing a gash in its side and slowly capsizing. The former commander has been dubbed 'captain coward' in the 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.