The former ship commander of the crashed cruise ship is plagued by nightmares. However, he still thinks that he was wrongly branded a scapegoat.
Franceso Schettino, the former Costa Concordia captain, still sees himself ten years after the shipwreck as a “victim of a media trial”.
These were dramatic scenes that took place on January 13, 2012 in front of the Tuscan island of Giglio. Captain Francesco Schettino had steered his cruise ship, on which there were 4,229 people, far too close to the coast. The Costa Concordia ran aground on a rock. 32 people were killed.
Schettino was one of the first to leave the capsized ship on a lifeboat. The 61-year-old, who was sentenced to 16 years as the main culprit in the tragedy, has been in Rebibbia prison in Rome for almost five years – and has now given the Italian newspaper “La Stampa” an insight into his prison life. He says, “People can’t believe it, but I have nightmares.” He has not forgotten the victims of the Concordia. “But I haven’t forgotten that I was treated as a scapegoat.”
Popular with the other inmates
According to the report, Schettino is a “model prisoner” in Rebibbia. “He is very friendly and respectful of the other prisoners,” the newspaper quoted a prison chaplain Don Lucio Boldrin. At the same time he is completing two university courses, one in law and one in journalism. Schettino told him that he didn’t want to waste his time in prison, said the pastor. He therefore played sports, read in English and contributed to the prison’s printed newspaper.
The former captain, who, according to Boldrin, is “very much loved” by the other prisoners, still sees himself as a “victim of a media trial”. He was convicted before the legal process. With his studies, Schettino now wants to understand how it happened that he became a target of the media, explains his lawyer.
At the same time, the convicted captain is undergoing psychotherapy, which, according to his legal representative, is not easy for him. Basically, Schettino is also a shipwrecked man who keeps thinking back to that damn night and the 32 dead. However, it is not okay that Schettino is the only one who has to pay for the misfortune. In truth, there was an organizational error at the origin of the shipwreck. “They wanted to find someone to blame, not the truth.”
Application for early release
In fact, Schettino is the only member of the cruise ship’s crew to have been sentenced to prison for the shipwreck. The helmsman and other men who worked in management positions on the ship received significantly lighter sentences. Schettino, on the other hand, was sentenced to 16 years and one month in prison for negligent average, multiple negligent homicide, bodily harm, for leaving the ship early and for false statements.
Nevertheless, the former commandant can hope to leave the prison soon: on May 17, he will have served a third of his sentence. He can then request that his sentence be commuted to a prison term. As a model prisoner, Schettino probably has an intact chance of it.