Italian prosecutors trying to explain an apparent delay in the evacuation of the Costa Concordia are examining the theory that the ship’s owners could have been trying to avoid a huge compensation payout, it was reported today.
Investigators are focusing on a series of telephone calls made from the cruise liner after it hit rocks last Friday night and the moment, more than an hour later, when the order was finally given to evacuate its 4,200 passengers and crew, according to Corriere della Sera, a leading Italian newspaper.
The investigators are also seeking to question a young Moldovan dancer who was with the ship’s captain on the night the ship sank off the coast of Tuscany, but whose name was missing from the list of passengers and crew.
Prosecutors in Grosseto, who are investigating Captain Francesco Schettino for multiple manslaughter and deserting his post, want to question the woman about her apparent presence on the bridge during the disaster.
Domnica Cemortan, 25, who trained as a ballet dancer in Paris, had worked for Costa Cruises but is thought to be taking a “holiday” on the ill-fated ship.
Witnesses have claimed that the captain had dinner with her at about 9.05pm on Friday, before the ship ran into rocks off the island of Giglio at 9.42pm.
Ms Cemortan told a Romanian newspaper that she had been enlisted to help because she speaks four languages, including Russian.
“I was at dinner with friends, at 21.30. I climbed on to the bridge and translated information provided by the officers for Russian passengers ...” she said. “The Russians were the first passengers to be evacuated.”
Ms Cemortan said that she was “shocked” by allegations by Russian passengers that the captain was drunk. She said he was still aboard when she left the ship at 11.50pm and helped to save thousand of lives.
Of her own experience, she said: “It was dark. Knowing the ship saved me. Trying to move to the exit, following the fluorescent lights, I could hear all sorts of objects falling. People were screaming. A man had a three-month-old baby in his arms and another had a three-year-old ... The ship was pitching more and more.
“When I reached the lifeboat, I thought we were saved. But a large piece of metal began to push the boat. Many people have jumped. It was the second time when I looked death in the eyes. I knew that you could survive in the water for 20 minutes, by which time you had to reach the shore or another boat.”
Ms Cemortan’s presence aboard the boat — she was dubbed the “mystery blonde” after photographs emerged of her at the captain’s table — dominated Italian newspapers today.
Eleven people have been confirmed dead after the shipwreck and rescue workers were today continuing an increasingly desperate search for the 21 people still listed as missing.
Prosecutors investigating the tragedy were quick to pinpoint a series of telephone calls between Mr Schettino and Roberto Ferrarini, who heads the operational crisis unit at Costa Cruises, the ship’s owners.
Corriere della Sera reported that the investigators were also looking at other phone calls made from the ship at the same time to other people in the company.
It said that the the investigators were trying to find out whether the delay reflected a failure to understand the scale of the potential disaster or whether company bosses were trying to avoid the “economic consequences” of an evacuation which would entail an automatic compensation payment of €10,000 a passenger — a total of €30 million for the 3,000 passengers aboard.
The newspaper said that the prosecutors were trying to reconstruct both the chain of command and find out what advice was given to the captain, but they were increasingly confident that Mr Schettino would not be the only person charged.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article3291863.ece
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