Italian official sentenced to more than a decade for Genoa bridge disaster which killed 43
The victims died after vehicles were sent plunging onto warehouses and a riverbed beneath a flyover during a storm
The former head of an Italian motorway operator has been sentenced to over a decade in prison for his role in a bridge disaster which killed 43 people.
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Giovanni Castellucci was one of 32 defendants convicted over the collapse of the Morandi bridge near Genoa, which killed 43 people when vehicles were sent plunging onto warehouses and a riverbed beneath the flyover during a storm in August 2018.
He was jailed for 12 years on Thursday and Michele Donferri Mitelli, another former senior manager at Autostrade got 11 years.
A further 25 defendants were either acquitted or cleared because of the statute of limitations.
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The collapse of the bridge, which was 50 metres high, sent shockwaves through Italy and triggered lengthy investigations into the management and maintenance of its ageing infrastructure.
It has since been rebuilt.
Prosecutors argued that years of inadequate maintenance, ignored warning signs and delayed safety work contributed to the collapse.
Egle Possetti, who lost her sister, brother-in-law and her sister's two children in the tragedy, called the Genoa court's verdicts, which can be appealed, "a first stage that opens up a ray of light."
They added: "We are satisfied with the sentences. The important thing was to identify the precise responsibilities for individual senior roles in the companies involved."
Castellucci, who also served as CEO of Atlantia, the controlling shareholder in Autostrade at the time, was convicted of complicity in multiple counts of manslaughter through negligence.
Castellucci is already in prison, serving a six-year sentence over another fatal incident in 2013 on a viaduct in southern Italy, and was not in court to hear the verdict.
His lawyer Giovanni Paolo Accinni said: "This is a defeat for the truth of what happened.
"It is part of a trend that has already led to Castellucci being sent to prison. The criminalisation of the chief executive cannot be the solution.
"We will continue to fight for his innocence."
