’Captain Coward’ accepts jail fate

ROME: The captain of the doomed Costa Concordia cruise liner turned himself in after Italy’s highest court upheld his 16-year prison sentence for the tragedy that killed 32 people.

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 fiveyear old girl and her father and a musician who gave up his seat in a lifeboat for someone else.

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.

In a widely-quoted phone call a coast guard official is heard upbraiding Schettino and ordering him to “get back on board, for f**k’s sake” — an order the former captain refused to follow.