Costa Concordia Captain Expects To Learn Fate

Three judges are expected to announce whether they have reached a verdict in the trial of Francesco Schettino, the captain of the stricken Costa Concordia.

They have been deliberating whether he should be held responsible for multiple manslaughter and abandoning ship after the cruise liner smashed into rocks off Giglio island in Italy.

Thirty-two people were killed in the January 2012 shipwreck, and the trial has been held in a theatre so survivors and the victims' families were able to attend.

The judges have been considering their verdict in an actor's dressing room.

Prosecutors, who rejected an earlier plea bargain from the captain, have called for a 26-year jail sentence.

Before the panel retired on Wednesday afternoon, Schettino told his trial "a part of me died" on the night of the disaster, and wept in court as he addressed the three judges.

He claimed the blame for the disaster lay with his employer Costa Cruises and said the media had portrayed him unfairly.

He said: "In this court a lot of words have been said to destroy my dignity. I have spent the last three years in a media meat grinder.

"It is difficult to call what I have been living through a life.

"All the responsibility has been loaded on to me with no respect for the truth or for the memory of the victims.

"I want to say that on 16 January a part of me died."

He was unable to finish his statement, breaking into loud sobs before declaring "basta" (enough) and slumping back into his seat.

Schettino is charged with manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and leaving the liner ahead of some of the passengers when it hit rocks and capsized off the island of Giglio in 2012.

Ian Donoff and his wife were among the 37 British passengers and crew on board during the chaotic and delayed night time evacuation.

Mr Donoff told Sky News: "We said our prayers together and we said it was so unfair that we were married only 11 days and this would be happening to us.

"Everything passes through your mind and I said 'I don't think we're going to get out of here'."

Lawyers spent Wednesday morning summing up the case in court in Grosseto, Tuscany, where the trial began in July 2013.

Lead defence lawyer Domenico Pepe said his client was "the victim of a legal and media circus", who had suffered a lot of pain since the disaster.

On Tuesday, prosecutor Stefano Pizza called the captain's conduct "reprehensible" and said: "It was a Titanic affair that merits adequate punishment."

He said: "There is a tsunami of evidence against Francesco Schettino but he has admitted to nothing.

"It would be easier for a lawyer to fly than to defend Schettino."

Schettino, 54, claims equipment failures complicated the situation on the sinking vessel and he held off calling the evacuation because he wanted to avoid people panicking and jumping into the sea.

His lawyers say he had calculated that tide and wind conditions would carry the listing ship closer to the shore, making evacuation safer.

The Italian says the reef was not on nautical charts and claims sailing close to Giglio to impress passengers was encouraged by the ship's owner.

He also disputes claims he abandoned ship half an hour before the alarm was finally sounded, saying he fell off as a result of it tilting.

Helicopters plucked survivors off the stranded 290-metre vessel while Schettino - dubbed Captain Coward by some newspapers - was already safely ashore.

A salvage operation costing hundreds of millions of pounds refloated and towed the ship away from Giglio in July 2014.