Families of 43 victims await verdict in Genoa bridge disaster

BBC:

On the morning of 14 August 2018, Claudia Possetti, 47, was in the car with her new husband Andrea, and her two children, aged 12 and 16.

The couple had just married and were driving to the Italian Riviera with the youngsters for a holiday when the Morandi bridge in the northern city of Genoa collapsed beneath them.

Their car was among those that plunged from the viaduct on to the railway tracks below. The four of them were among 43 people killed in one of Italy’s worst infrastructure disasters in decades.

Nearly eight years on, Claudia’s sister, Egle Possetti, will be among relatives gathering in a Genoa courtroom on Thursday to hear a first-instance verdict in the trial over the collapse. The children’s father, who survived them, is also expected to be in court.

“I feel anxious, worried, very emotional,” Egle told the BBC. “After so many years, so many hearings, we may be able to see some light. It would be so important for us to know if someone’s been held accountable.”

The bridge came down during a summer storm at the height of the holiday season, sending cars and lorries plunging to the ground below.

The collapse triggered years of investigation into how the viaduct, built in the 1960s and part of a key route linking Genoa to the French border, had been allowed to fail.

Fifty-seven people have stood trial since July 2022. Among them are former executives of toll road operator Autostrade per l’Italia and its parent company Atlantia, engineers from the maintenance firm Spea, and former transport ministry officials. The charges range from multiple manslaughter to falsifying documents.

All the defendants deny wrongdoing.

At the heart of the Morandi bridge case is a basic disagreement over why the bridge fell.

Prosecutors say maintenance was repeatedly delayed, even as warning signs were ignored, while profits kept flowing.

Defence lawyers argue the real cause was a design flaw in the specific cable that failed, and that no maintenance regime could have prevented it as it was encased in concrete. Some lesser charges, including document forgery, have already lapsed under Italy’s statute of limitations.

The trial has run for almost four years and 284 hearings.

Francesco Pinto, the former deputy chief prosecutor who worked on the case, has described the length of the proceedings as symptomatic of deeper problems in Italy’s justice system, and believes an appeal and a final Supreme Court ruling could together take another two and a half years.