A court in Genoa has convicted 32 people over the 2018 collapse of the Morandi bridge, in which 43 people died as a motorway viaduct gave way beneath them. The first-instance verdict was delivered on July 16, nearly eight years after the disaster and four years after the trial opened.
Giovanni Castellucci, former chief executive of motorway operator Autostrade per l’Italia (ASPI) and of its then parent company Atlantia, received the longest sentence at 12 years. Prosecutors had sought 18 years and six months.
Sentences ranged from one year and 11 months to 12 years. Michele Donferri Mitelli, formerly ASPI’s third-ranking executive, was jailed for 11 years, and Mauro Coletta, who ran the transport ministry’s oversight of motorway concessions, received five.
A further 25 were acquitted or saw the charges against them lapse under Italy’s statute of limitations. Those on trial included executives, engineers and ministry officials.
The Morandi viaduct carried the A10 motorway, part of the European route E80 linking Italy and France. A 200-metre section fell some 45 metres during a storm on August 14, 2018, killing motorists and people on the ground and displacing 566 residents.
Prosecutors argued that ASPI’s management had held back maintenance spending while profits continued to be distributed, and that the infrastructure ministry failed to supervise the network. Defence lawyers rejected that account and said they would appeal.
Castellucci was not in court. He is serving a six-year sentence over a 2013 coach crash near Avellino, southern Italy, in which 40 people died.
Italian deputy transport minister Edoardo Rixi said the ruling established responsibility but that eight years to reach a first-instance judgment was far too long. Under Italian law the ruling can be appealed at least twice more.
Italy has committed to faster trials under its European Union-funded recovery plan, agreeing to cut the time taken to dispose of criminal cases by 25 per cent by June 2026. The European Commission tied part of the money to that target.
The collapse also cost the Benetton family control of Italy’s motorways. Atlantia sold its controlling stake in ASPI in 2022 for €8.2 billion to a consortium led by State lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti.
ASPI chief executive Arrigo Giana published an open letter the day before the verdict apologising to the victims’ families, to Genoa and to all Italians. Egle Possetti, who heads the committee representing victims’ relatives, said the apology should have come at the time, not eight years later on the eve of a ruling.
