The former head of Italy’s motorway operator has been given a 12-year prison sentence over the collapse of Genoa’s Morandi bridge in August 2018.
Prosecutors had asked for a far longer jail term for Giovanni Castellucci, ex-chief executive of Autostrade per l’Italia (Aspi).
Forty-three people died when the motorway bridge running through the city came down in a rain storm at the height of the holiday season, sending cars and lorries plummeting to the ground.
Castellucci, who is already serving a six-year jail term for a 2013 road disaster, was one of 57 defendants on trial in Genoa. Another top motorway official, Michele Donferri Mitelli, has been given 11 years in jail.
Emmanuel Diaz, whose brother Henry died in the bridge collapse told Italian TV he was “very satisfied” with the verdict, while Egle Possetti, whose sister and her family were all killed, said she thought the 12-year term handed to Castellucci was “acceptable”.
It was a first stage that “opens up a ray of light”, said Possetti, who heads the Morandi bridge victims’ memorial committee.
Giovanni Castelucci was not in court to hear the verdicts, read out by Judge Paolo Lepri, and his lawyer said they would continue to fight for his innocence on appeal, describing the verdict as profoundly flawed.
The former number two at the motorway operator, Paolo Berti, was handed a five-and-a half-year jail term, seven years less than prosecutors had sought.
Thirty-two people were found guilty by the court on Thursday, and several officials were given sentences of just under two years in prison. Another 25 were either acquitted or cleared because the offences came under a statute of limitations.
In total, prosecutors had asked for the 57 defendants to be given 400 years in jail on charges including manslaughter and failing to maintain the viaduct, which was designed by Riccardo Morandi in 1967.
All the defendants had denied doing anything wrong.
While prosecutors had argued that maintenance of the ageing structure had been repeatedly delayed and that warning signs had been ignored, defence lawyers blamed the disaster on a design flaw, and the fact that a specific cable was encased in concrete.
