Italy orders 59 people to stand trial for Genoa bridge collapse
By Emilio Parodi
GENOA, Italy (Reuters) -An Italian decide on Thursday ordered 59 folks, together with former Atlantia CEO Giovanni Castellucci, to face trial over the lethal collapse of a bridge in Genoa 4 years in the past, judicial sources instructed Reuters.
The trial will begin in Genoa on July 7, the sources added.
The highway bridge, operated by Atlantia’s motorway unit Autostrade per l’Italia, collapsed within the port metropolis on Aug. 14, 2018, killing 43 folks and laying naked the dire state of Italy’s crumbling infrastructure.
Paola Vicini, the mom of one of many victims, wept outdoors the courtroom home on Thursday.
“To the opposite victims’ households, I say have energy and braveness, and we’ll get justice,” she stated.
Decide Paola Faggioni, on the finish of a closed-door preliminary listening to that started final October, additionally accepted the settlement proposed by Autostrade and its sister firm SPEA to shut the case.
Autostrade had supplied to pay 1 million euros ($1.1 million) as a settlement and 26 million euros in compensation to the Italian state for the case, whereas SPEA had proposed to pay 810,000 euros to settle.
Final June, Italian prosecutors had requested for Autostrade, SPEA and 59 people to be despatched to trial however the funds imply the businesses is not going to be concerned any extra.
The people, Autostrade and SPEA have maintained their innocence over the bridge collapse. The settlement doesn’t contain any recognition of wrongdoing on the a part of the 2 firms.
Giovanni Paolo Accinni, a lawyer for Castellucci, stated on Thursday that the accusations towards his consumer would “fall away like an autumn leaf”.
The collapse precipitated a dispute between Atlantia and the federal government that ended final June with the sale of Atlantia’s controlling stake in Autostrade to state lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) and funding companions.
In a doc on the probe’s findings seen by Reuters, prosecutors stated final 12 months that the collapse was triggered by the rupture of the load-bearing cables contained in the keep of the bridge’s ninth pillar, which had been eaten away by a extremely corrosive ambiance over the 51 years of the bridge’s life.
Managers at Atlantia models Autostrade and SPEA allegedly prevented correct checks of the state of the infrastructure and didn’t appropriate severe points that began to emerge only some years after the viaduct had opened in 1967, the doc stated.
($1 = 0.9163 euros)
(Reporting by Emilio Parodi, modifying by Maria Pia Quaglia and Keith Weir)
