The captain of the doomed Costa Concordia cruise liner turned himself in on Friday after Italy's highest court upheld his 16-year prison sentence for the tragedy that killed 32 people.
Photo from video
Francesco Schettino, dubbed "Captain Coward" by the press for abandoning the stricken ship, passed through the gates of the Rebibbia jail in Rome as soon as the judges ruled.
Schettino, 56, was convicted in 2015 -- three years after the incident -- of multiple counts of manslaughter, causing a maritime accident and abandoning ship before all passengers and crew had been evacuated.
"He said 'I trust in the justice system, the verdict must be respected. I'm handing myself in right now'," his lawyer Saverio Senese said after speaking to Schettino by telephone.
Alessandra Guarini, a lawyer for relatives of the victims, said: "Justice has finally been served. I hope this brings a bit of serenity to those who lost their loved ones."
The victims included a five-year old girl and her father, a musician who gave up his seat in a lifeboat for someone else, and a woman who died on impact when she plunged from the sinking liner into the freezing waters.
Prosecutors argued that Schettino's recklessness was to blame for the fate of the giant ship, which struck rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio on the night of January 13, 2012, and toppled over.
Schettino was widely ridiculed during the trial for insisting he did not abandon ship but slipped off the Costa Concordia as it rolled over, falling onto a lifeboat which carried him ashore against his wishes.
During the first 19-month trial, Schettino was accused of showing off when he steered the ship too close to the island while entertaining a female friend.
Schettino's lawyers insisted the accident and its deadly consequences were primarily due to organisational failings for which the ship's owner, Costa Crociere, its Indonesian helmsman and the Italian coastguard should have shared the blame.
The defence had also argued that it was not the collision, but rather the chaos that ensued due to the ship losing power that was the direct cause of the deaths. Schettino could not be blamed for the mechanical failures, it said.
The ship had been carrying 4,229 people, including 3,200 tourists.
