Thirty-two defendants were sentenced Thursday to sentences of up to 12 years in prison following the trial of the Morandi bridge disaster in Genoa (north-west Italy), which left 43 dead.
Among them are several former executives of the motorway company Autostrade per l’Italia (Aspi), manager of the immense viaduct built on the motorway linking Italy and France, which collapsed on August 14, 2018 at 11:36 a.m. local time (9:36 a.m. GMT), taking away dozens of vehicles.
In the crowded courtroom of the Genoa court, many emotional relatives of victims declared themselves satisfied.
“Today, we can say that there are culprits for our murdered loved ones,” said Michele Matti Altadonna, the brother of one of the victims, at the end of this intense trial which opened in 2022.
This overview taken on August 15, 2018 shows abandoned vehicles on the Morandi motorway bridge, the day after part of it collapsed in the northwestern Italian city of Genoa.
AFP
The former general director of Autostrade, Giovanni Castellucci, received the heaviest sentence, according to an AFP journalist.
Already imprisoned for his responsibility in a 2013 accident in which a coach broke the barriers of a viaduct in southern Italy and plunged into the void, killing 40 people, Mr. Castellucci was found guilty of negligence and manslaughter.
“This bridge did not collapse by chance (…); as we have always maintained and as the prosecution has constantly affirmed, (this) could have been avoided,” said lawyer Raffaele Caruso, who represents the Committee of Relatives of the Victims of the Morandi Bridge.
“Serious errors”
The Autostrade concessionaire, its maintenance subsidiary, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport: the court shared responsibilities between the different managers responsible for guaranteeing the safety of the old reinforced concrete bridge.
Former Autostrade numbers 2 and 3 were sentenced to five and a half and 11 years in prison respectively, while a former executive from the ministry responsible for supervising motorway concessions received five years in prison.
Twenty-eight other co-defendants – out of a total of 57 – were found guilty and given suspended prison sentences of at least one year and 11 months, according to a copy of the verdict seen by AFP.
“It is a day of enormous historical and emotional weight for the city of Genoa,” commented the city’s mayor, Ilaria Salis, in court.
The Italian Deputy Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Edoardo Rixi, welcomed that “responsibilities have finally been established”.
The magistrates had notably pointed out during the trial that “between the inauguration (of the bridge) in 1967 and the collapse, 51 years later, minimal maintenance interventions were not carried out to reinforce the cables of pillar number 9”, which collapsed on the day of the tragedy.
The fragility of the cables was known and work had been carried out on two identical pillars, 10 and 11. Work was planned on 9.
« Innocent »
This tragedy shed harsh light on the poor state of transport infrastructure in Italy and on the murky role of the motorway company Autostrade, accused of having failed to maintain the structure in order to save money.
Me Giovanni Paolo Accinni, lawyer for Giovanni Castellucci, however estimated Thursday that his client was “innocent” and that he will appeal.
According to the defense’s main thesis, it was a hidden construction defect, namely corrosion of the bridge’s cables, which caused its collapse, and not a lack of maintenance.
If their former managers found themselves in the dock, the company Autostrade and its subsidiary Spea, on the other hand, escaped the trial thanks to an agreement reached with the prosecution.
At the time of the tragedy, Autostrade belonged to the Atlantia group, controlled by the wealthy Benetton family, which ended up selling its share in May 2022 to the State, pushed towards the exit under pressure from the political class and public opinion.
A few kilometers from the court, above a memorial for the victims, a new bridge designed by Genoese architect Renzo Piano and inaugurated in 2020 welcomed the dense traffic of vacationers on Thursday.
