Francesco Schettino, former captain of the Costa Concordia, has applied for semi-liberty: he had been definitively sentenced to 16 years in prison for the shipwreck of 13 January 2012.
Schettino has now served more than half of his sentence, thus acquiring the right to alternative measures to detention. The decision will be up to the Surveillance Court, which will discuss the request on March 4.
The sinking of the Costa Concordia, which occurred 13 years ago, is one of the most dramatic tragedies in the history of Italian navigation. At 21:42 PM that night, the ship hit a rock near the island of Giglio during a close maneuver known as “inchio”, performed on the captain's decision without adequately evaluating the route. The impact caused 32 victims and hundreds of injuries.
Schettino was arrested three days after the disaster, on January 16, 2012. Initially held in prison, he was later placed under house arrest until December 5 of the same year.
The final conviction came in 2017, when the Court of Cassation upheld the sentence. Schettino turned himself in to Rome's Rebibbia prison, where he has served his sentence to date.
