(7 Jul 2022)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Genoa - 7 July 2022
1. Wide of courthouse entrance
2. Police outside courthouse
3. Pan of special courtroom inside tent
4. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Egle Possetti, representative of committee for victims of Genoa bridge collapse:
"There are elements that prove that since 2013 it was written in documents that the Morandi bridge was at risk of collapsing. In five years nothing was done. This is unacceptable. So we will fight, as relatives and civil parties, so that this trial will give justice to our families and respect for the dead who aren't here."
5. Various of relatives of victims inside room for them to follow trial
6. Police outside courthouse
7. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Giovanni Paolo Accinni, lawyer for former Autostrade (highway company) CEO Giovanni Castellucci:
"If, as we are certain, the rules will be respected, by which guilt must be established legally and not fiction, therefore in respect of the facts, then it will emerge that the bridge collapsed due to a constructive defect and maintained as such. This is the reason why 43 people died in a terrifying and absurd way and many defendants today are facing the trial as innocents."
8. Relatives speaking outside courthouse
9. T-shirt with photo of victim
STORYLINE:
Fifty-nine people went on trial Thursday for the 2018 collapse of Genoa’s Morandi bridge, accused of manslaughter and other charges in the deaths of 43 people.
The defendants include former executives and experts of the company that manages many of Italy’s bridges and highways, as well as former officials of the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport.
A huge section of the Morandi bridge broke off during a violent rainstorm on August 14, 2018, when highways were packed on the eve of Italy's biggest summer holiday, sending cars plunging into the dry riverbed below.
Prosecutors have alleged the defendants knew the bridge, which was built in the 1960s, was at risk of collapsing and that corners were cut on maintenance to save money.
The bridge’s designer had recommended regular upkeep to remove rust, especially due to the corrosive effect of moist air from the nearby Ligurian Sea, and maintenance to counter the effect of pollution on concrete.
“There are elements that prove that, since 2013, it was written in documents that the Morandi bridge was at risk of collapsing," said Egle Possetti, a member of the committee of relatives of Morandi victims who attended the hearing.
"In five years, nothing was done. This is unacceptable. So we will fight, as relatives and civil parties, so that this trial will give justice to our families and respect for the dead who aren’t here,” Possetti said outside the tribunal.
After an hour of procedural motions, Judge Paolo Lepri adjourned the proceedings and set a new hearing for Sept. 14 in a trial that is expected to take more than a year to reach any verdicts, the LaPresse news agency reported.
In April, a Genoa judge approved plea bargain requests by both the highway company, Autostrade per Italia, and the Spea engineering company, to pay 29 million euros ($33 million) to the Italian government in exchange for avoiding a trial.
The lawyer for former Austostrade CEO Giovanni Castellucci, who is among the defendants, said the trial would show that the bridge collapsed not as a result of maintenance negligence but due to an original “construction defect.”
“This is why 43 people died in a terrifying and absurd way,” lawyer Giovanni Paolo Accinni told reporters Thursday outside the Genoa tribunal.
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