updated 12:55 PM EDT, Fri July 6, 2012
The
captain of the Costa Concordia cruise liner Francesco Schettino is
escorted by an Italian policeman in Grosseto on January 14, 2012.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: A newspaper publishes an account saying the captain credits "a divine hand"
- Francesco Schettino is freed from house arrest but must stay in his home town
- He was in charge of the Costa Concordia when it struck rocks and overturned
- Schettino's lawyer says his behavior under house arrest has been "faultless"
The CNN Presents documentary "Cruise to
Disaster" aired Wednesday, July 4, at 8 p.m ET. Encore presentation
Sunday, July 8, at 8 p.m. ET
Rome (CNN) -- Italian judges released the captain of
the wrecked Costa Concordia cruise liner from house arrest Thursday,
but ordered him not to leave his home town while the case against him
continues, his lawyer said.
Francesco Schettino has been under house arrest in his home town of Meta di Sorrento, near Naples, since January 17.
At least 30 people died
when the cruise liner struck rocks and turned on its side off the
Italian island of Giglio on January 13.
Schettino faces
allegations of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, abandoning ship,
failing to report an accident to the coast guard and destroying a
natural habitat, a prosecutor said this year. Giglio is a protected
park.
Cruise survivors: 'It was pitch black'
Costa Concordia survivors recall disaster
Cruise to disaster: The Costa Concordia
Schettino's lawyer, Bruno
Leporatti, had argued for the lifting of the restrictions on his
client, saying his behavior had been "faultless."
The judge leading the
preliminary investigations, Valeria Montesarchio, said it would be easy
to keep Schettino under "adequate supervision" in Meta di Sorrento
without house arrest because it is a small town, according to court
documents released Thursday.
In addition, the months Schettino has spent under house arrest have already produced a "deterrent effect," Montesarchio said.
The judge also lifted a provision barring Schettino from communicating with anyone apart from his lawyers and family.
From the beginning,
Leporatti said, the attitude of the captain had been "totally
collaborative, he has spoken on his defense but admitting his
responsibilities, without trying to download them on others."
The lawyer said the
judge's decision to order Schettino to stay in his home town was "the
least punitive measure" available to him.
Also on Thursday,
Italian newspaper Corriere del Mezzogiorno published documents written
by Schettino's lawyers that purport to be the captain's recollection of
what happened on the night the Costa Concordia struck rocks off the
Italian coast.
"No one, until then, had
warned me that we had passed the point of turn on the fixed route.
Luckily I saw the white froth on my left. It was a sign that made me
give the order to tack to starboard, out of pure instinct. At that
moment a divine hand has definitely landed on my head. If I had
continued on that route, we hit the rock with the bow. It would have
been a massacre," Schettino said, according to the newspaper.
A court hearing on July
21 will start the examination of the enormous amount of technical
information gathered in the wake of the disaster.
Schettino's first
officer, Ciro Ambrosio, and six other officers both on the ship and from
the firm Costa in Genoa are under investigation over allegations
including manslaughter, shipwreck and failure to report the accident,
the prosecutor in the case has said.
No one has been charged in connection with the shipwreck.
Schettino previously has
said managers of the Costa cruise line instructed him to sail close to
the island and has denied allegations that he was sailing too fast. He
has said the rock the ship struck was not indicated on his charts of the
area.
Salvage experts
announced in May that efforts to raise the wrecked liner from the sea
floor in one piece and tow it from the disaster site were getting under
way.
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