Concordia skipper fights to avoid prison over Italy disaster

Costa Concordia skipper Francesco Schettino today begins his battle to avoid prison for causing the 2012 cruise ship disaster off Italy which cost 32 people their lives.
Schettino was sentenced in February 2015 to 16 years and one month in jail after a judge ruled his recklessness caused the accident that ensued after the giant pleasure boat struck underwater rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio.
The 55-year-old career seaman, who has not yet begun his sentence, says he has been made the solitary scapegoat for the disaster and will seek to overturn his manslaughter conviction in an appeal which opens at 0730 GMT today and will run through May at least.

The prosecution is simultaneously appealing last year's sentence, maintaining that Schettino should have been given 26 years.
During his first, 19-month, trial, Schettino was accused of showing off when he steered the ship too close to the island and of being distracted because he was entertaining a nightclub dancer.
He was convicted of multiple manslaughter, causing a maritime accident and of leaving his boat before all passengers and crew had been evacuated, in breach of centuries-old sailors' code.

The latter detail resulted in him being dubbed "Captain Coward' by the international media while prosecutors branded him "an idiot".
Under Italy's long-winded legal system, Schettino was automatically granted an appeal and if it does not go his way he can try again at the Court of Cassation, the country's highest court.

"I will fight for ever to prove that I did not abandon the Costa Concordia," he vowed after his conviction.
The failure to be the last man off the boat only accounted for one year of the sentence handed down in Grosseto, Tuscany last year.
But it was the accusation of cowardice and unprofessionalism that seemed to hit the Naples-born sailor the hardest.
His defence that he had "fallen" into a lifeboat was widely ridiculed and he broke down in tears during his final plea to be acquitted.
Schettino was given 10 years for manslaughter and five for causing a disaster that led to the biggest salvage operation in maritime history.