{
  "type": "article",
  "title": "Twelve years for former motorway boss as Genoa court delivers verdicts over deadly bridge collapse",
  "summary": "A Genoa court has sentenced Giovanni Castellucci, the former head of Italian motorway operator Aspi, to 12 years in prison over the August 2018 collapse of the Morandi bridge that killed 43 people, with verdicts also delivered for the rest of the 57 defendants who stood trial.",
  "content": "A court in Genoa has closed one of Italy's most closely watched criminal trials, sentencing Giovanni Castellucci, the former chief executive of motorway operator Autostrade per l'Italia (Aspi), to 12 years in prison over the collapse of the city's Morandi bridge in August 2018. Prosecutors had pushed for a far harsher sentence for Castellucci, but the 12-year term was still enough to bring a measure of closure to families who have waited more than seven years for accountability over one of modern Italy's worst infrastructure disasters. The case had worked its way through evidence involving dozens of engineers, executives and government officials before finally reaching a verdict this week.\n\nA viaduct that came down in a storm\nThe Morandi bridge, a motorway viaduct running through Genoa, collapsed during a rain storm at the height of the summer holiday season in August 2018. A large section of the structure gave way without warning, sending cars and lorries plunging to the ground below as the road simply vanished beneath them. Forty-three people were killed in the disaster, making it one of the deadliest infrastructure failures in modern Italian history. The bridge had originally been designed by engineer Riccardo Morandi in 1967, more than five decades before it came down, and had long carried heavy daily traffic as one of the city's key motorway links.\n\nHow the sentences broke down\nCastellucci was one of 57 defendants who stood trial in Genoa on charges that included manslaughter and failing to properly maintain the viaduct. Judge Paolo Lepri read out the verdicts in court, though Castellucci himself was not present to hear them. He is already serving a separate six-year prison term over a road disaster from 2013, meaning the Morandi case adds further time on top of an existing sentence.\n\nAnother senior motorway official, Michele Donferri Mitelli, was sentenced to 11 years in jail. Paolo Berti, who had served as the former number two at the motorway operator, received a five-and-a-half-year term, seven years less than what prosecutors had originally asked for. Several other officials were handed sentences of just under two years each. Twenty-five of the 57 defendants were either acquitted outright or had their cases dismissed because the alleged offences fell outside Italy's statute of limitations, the legal time limit within which charges can be pursued.\n\nTaken together, prosecutors had originally sought a combined 400 years in prison across all 57 defendants. The sentences the court ultimately handed down were, in almost every case, considerably shorter than that request, a gap that has left some relatives of victims satisfied with the outcome and others feeling the punishment did not go far enough.\n\nGrief and relief among the victims' families\nFor families who lost loved ones in the collapse, the verdicts brought mixed but largely welcome emotions after years of legal proceedings. Emmanuel Diaz, whose brother Henry died when the bridge came down, told Italian television that he was \"very satisfied\" with the outcome. Egle Possetti, who lost her sister and her sister's entire family in the disaster, said she considered the 12-year sentence given to Castellucci \"acceptable.\" Their reactions reflected a wider pattern among the families, most of whom described the verdicts as an important, if imperfect, form of justice.\n\nNot everyone felt the same sense of resolution. Cesare, an 18-year-old whose father Andrea Cerulli was among the 43 victims, said the response from Aspi felt hollow to him. He described the company's apology as nothing more than \"crocodile tears,\" adding that \"these people lack tact and humanity.\"\n\nTwo competing explanations for the collapse\nAll 57 defendants had denied any wrongdoing throughout the trial. Prosecutors argued that maintenance work on the ageing structure had been repeatedly delayed over the years and that clear warning signs about its deteriorating condition had been ignored by those responsible for keeping the bridge safe. Defence lawyers rejected that account entirely, instead placing the blame on a design flaw dating back to the original 1967 structure and on the fact that a specific supporting cable had been encased in concrete, which they argued made it impossible to properly inspect or maintain over the decades that followed.\n\nThe list of defendants extended well beyond Aspi's own leadership. It included engineers from Spea, the firm responsible for inspecting and maintaining the viaduct, along with former officials from Italy's transport ministry and from Atlantia, the company that was Aspi's parent group at the time of the collapse. Antonino Galatà, Spea's former chief executive, was sentenced to five and a half years, while Mauro Coletta, who had been the top official in charge of the transport ministry's motorway directorate, received a five-year term.\n\nAn apology dismissed as too little, too late\nOn the eve of the verdicts, Aspi's current head, Arrigo Giana, issued the company's first public apology over the bridge collapse, saying that \"the actions and decisions of some people left indelible scars.\" For Cesare, whose father was among those killed, the gesture came far too late to carry much weight, and he made clear he did not believe the apology was sincere.\n\nA day the state owed the families\nGenoa's mayor, Silvia Salis, attended the court hearing on the day the verdicts were read out and called it a day of immense historical and emotional weight for the city. She said that a first step had finally been taken toward establishing who was responsible for the collapse of the Morandi bridge, describing it as a moment the state owed to the families, who had been waiting since 14 August 2018, the day the disaster struck.\n\nA new bridge built on the ruins of the old\nThe remnants of the old Morandi bridge were brought down in a controlled explosion in early 2019, clearing the way for reconstruction. A new structure, named the San Giorgio bridge, was inaugurated the following year, just two years after the original disaster, an unusually fast rebuild for a piece of infrastructure of that scale. The replacement was designed by Genoa-born architect Renzo Piano and features a series of sail-like pillars intended to evoke the port city's long maritime history. The speed with which the new bridge went up stood in sharp contrast to the seven years it has taken for the criminal case over the old one to reach even this first set of verdicts, several of which are still likely to face appeals.\n\nQuestions & Answers\n\n1. What happened to the Morandi bridge?\nA large section of the Morandi bridge in Genoa collapsed during a rainstorm in August 2018, killing 43 people.\n\n2. What sentence did Giovanni Castellucci receive?\nAspi's former chief executive Giovanni Castellucci was sentenced to 12 years in prison.\n\n3. How many people were on trial?\nA total of 57 defendants stood trial in the case.\n\n4. What happened to the other defendants?\nMichele Donferri Mitelli got 11 years, Paolo Berti five and a half years, Antonino Galatà five and a half years and Mauro Coletta five years, while 25 defendants were either acquitted or had their cases dismissed under the statute of limitations.\n\n5. What sentence did prosecutors originally seek?\nProsecutors had sought a combined 400 years in prison across all 57 defendants.\n\n6. What did prosecutors and the defence disagree about?\nProsecutors blamed neglected maintenance and ignored warning signs, while the defence pointed to a design flaw from 1967 and a cable encased in concrete.\n\n7. Did Aspi apologise?\nYes, Aspi's current head Arrigo Giana issued the company's first public apology the day before the verdicts, though one victim's relative called it insincere.\n\n8. What replaced the old Morandi bridge?\nThe San Giorgio bridge, designed by architect Renzo Piano, was built in its place and opened just two years after the disaster.\n\n9. Is Castellucci already serving another sentence?\nYes, he is already serving a six-year prison term over a separate road disaster from 2013.",
  "url": "https://trendkia.com/en/europe/genoa-pula-hadase-men-purva-adhikari-giovanni-castellucci-ko-12-sala-ki-jela-adalata-ne-57-aropiyon-para-sunaya-phaisala-8195",
  "category": "Europe",
  "publishedAt": "2026-07-16",
  "tags": [
    "Morandi bridge disaster",
    "Genoa",
    "Giovanni Castellucci",
    "Aspi",
    "Italy court verdict",
    "San Giorgio bridge"
  ],
  "language": "en",
  "site": "TrendKia"
}