Giovanni Castellucci: Long prison sentence after fatal bridge collapse in Genoa

A dish in Genoa has sentenced Giovanni Castellucci, the former boss of the Italian motorway operator Aspi, to twelve years in prison. It is the first verdict in a year-long trial following the collapse of a motorway bridge in Genoa in August 2018, in which 43 people died. The court found him guilty of, among other things, negligent homicide.

Another 32 of a total of 57 defendants were also found guilty. Among them is the Aspi manager responsible for maintenance, Michele Mitelli, who was sentenced to eleven years in prison. The company’s former deputy boss, Paolo Berti, is to be sentenced to five and a half years in prison.

According to the prosecution, Castellucci knew about construction defects that were responsible for the collapse since 2009. Prosecutors accused him of neglecting necessary maintenance and ignoring warning signs. Castellucci is already in prison for another traffic accident. It was about the fall of a bus from a bridge in southern Italy in 2013, in which 40 people died. As a result, Castellucci was sentenced to six years in prison.

57 defendants in a year-long trial

There were 283 hearings in the four-year trial surrounding the collapse of the bridge in Genoa. In addition to Castellucci, the defendants include numerous executives of the motorway operator and its subsidiary Spea as well as employees in the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure. Many of them refused to testify.

The public prosecutor’s office has demanded a total of more than 400 years in prison for the 57 defendants for negligent homicide, endangering traffic safety and forging documents. Castellucci’s defense, however, blamed the collapse on a design flaw rather than a lack of maintenance.

On August 14, 2018, a pillar of the Morandi Bridge gave way, causing the roadway of the busy structure to collapse at a height of around 50 meters over a distance of around 200 meters. Dozens of vehicles fell into the depths. It was known that the reinforcing steel of the 1.2 kilometer long bridge was brittle.

Defective bridge pillars are said to have been ignored

According to the investigating judge, since the bridge was inaugurated in 1967, “not even minimal maintenance measures have been taken” to strengthen the supporting cables of pillar number nine. Work had been carried out on the identical pillars ten and eleven. Renovation was also planned for pillar nine. According to the indictment, demolition of the bridge was already considered in 2009. Prosecutors accused Castellucci of running the company in an authoritarian manner, placing more emphasis on profit than on safety.

The motorway operator Aspi and its subsidiary Spea are not in court in the process: they had reached an out-of-court settlement with the public prosecutor’s office, which provided for a payment of 29 million euros to the state. At the time of the disaster, Aspi and Spea belonged to the Atlantia group, which was controlled by the Benetton family of entrepreneurs. In May 2022, the family gave their shares to the state due to political pressure.