Reuters —
An Italian court on Thursday sentenced former Atlantia CEO Giovanni Castellucci to 12 years in prison for the 2018 collapse of a highway bridge in the northwestern port city of Genoa.
Atlantia was the controlling shareholder in highway operator Autostrade Per Italia at the time of the disaster, when 43 people were killed when a car fell off an overpass.
Relatives of the victims packed the courtroom to demand accountability for the disaster and hear the outcome of a case that has become a symbol of the slowness of justice in Italy’s complex criminal process.
Under the Italian legal system, a first instance judgment can be appealed at least twice.
Castellucci, who is serving a six-year sentence for another fatal 2013 crash on a viaduct in southern Italy, did not appear in court to hear his sentence.
Fifty-seven people were put on trial, including company executives, engineers, and Ministry of Transportation officials. The most serious charges include multiple counts of manslaughter and criminal negligence.
The collapse of the then 51-year-old Morandi Bridge in a summer storm on the eve of the holiday shocked Italy and sparked a years-long investigation into the management and maintenance of aging infrastructure.
A 50-meter (160-foot) section of the bridge collapsed, plunging as many as 35 vehicles into warehouses and the riverbed below.
This disaster led to a dispute between Atlantia, a holding company run by the Benetton family, and the government of the time, which ended with the sale of Atlantia’s control of Autostrade.
The current CEO of Autostrade issued an open letter on Wednesday reiterating the company’s commitment to ensuring that such a tragedy is not repeated.
“We would like to apologize to the families of the victims, to the people of Genoa and to all Italians for the suffering caused by the tragic Morandi accident, knowing full well that our actions can never erase their pain,” Autostrade CEO Arrigo Gianna wrote.
Prosecutors allege that years of inadequate maintenance, disregard for warning signs and delayed safety measures contributed to the collapse, and that critical work was postponed while profit generation and distribution continued.
Defense attorneys deny that theory. They claim the disaster was caused by an original design flaw in the bridge’s support cable No. 9, which caused it to fail, and that no maintenance program could have prevented the tragedy.
