Shipwreck captain Schettino defends actions in court

Costa Concordia captain Francesco Schettino defended his actions at a pre-trial court hearing on Thursday that recalled the terrifying night of a cruise ship tragedy that claimed 32 lives. Schettino went through "step by step the orders he had given in the moments before and after the crash and why he had given them," a participant at the closed-door hearing in the city of Grosseto in central Italy told AFP. The captain, who has been widely attacked for apparently abandoning the luxury liner before its evacuation was complete, said he had given orders to the helmsman "to turn the ship bit by bit" in the moments before it hit a reef, the participant said on condition of anonymity. The hearing was the latest in a series that began on Monday and will pave the way for a trial expected next year into the January 13 disaster, which happened with 4,229 people on board from dozens of countries. Some survivors have attended the hearings and said they were still traumatised nine months after the crash near the Tuscan island of Giglio, which sparked a panicked night-time evacuation from the sinking cruise ship. A total of 10 people are being investigated including Schettino and six other crew members, as well as three managers from ship owner Costa Crociere, which is part of the world's biggest cruise operator, US-based Carnival. Nobody has been formally charged with any crimes so far as investigators have until January, a year after the shipwreck, to press charges. The drama of the upcoming trial began to emerge this week, with a clear stand-off between Schettino and Costa Crociere over responsibilities. One of the key questions of a courtroom clash will be to work out why the order to evacuate the ship was given such a long time after the crash -- a delay that investigators see as a potentially fatal factor in the tragedy. Most of the lawyers present at the hearings, held in a theatre to accommodate many attendees, said they expected them to wrap up on Thursday. The sessions have focused on a report by technical experts who have analysed data recordings, orders given by the captain and phone conversations. A copy of the report obtained by AFP put much of the blame for the accident on Schettino, saying he had tried "an extremely risky manoeuvre". The report found that Schettino ordered a change in the ship's course to carry out a "salute" to Giglio -- a seafaring tradition in Italy -- and arrived on the bridge when the liner was only two nautical miles from the island. It said that fellow officers failed to warn the captain that the ship was too close to the shore and travelling too fast and that the helmsman mistakenly steered right instead of left moments before the impact. After the liner hit the rock, tearing a massive gash in its hull, Schettino provided "false information" to the authorities about the situation on board and declared an emergency only with "considerable delay", the report said. Some of the crew members who were meant to help passengers during the emergency did not have the correct training or an understanding of Italian. It also said Costa Crociere "after learning from the captain of the ship of the situation, did not put itself at the disposal of the relevant authorities". But Costa Crociere's lawyer Marco De Luca said the hearings had shown his client had "very exhaustive ordinary and emergency management procedures" and ships that were "extremely advanced and modern from every point of view". The experts also found Costa Crociere "could not have provided any technical assistance, considering the speed with which the ship flooded and ran aground". The ghostly wreck of the liner is still beached on its side just a few dozen metres from the shore of Giglio. Salvage crews are working flat out to stabilise and refloat the hulk by next year in an unprecedented operation. But the US company Titan tasked with removing the wreck in the biggest ever marine salvage project of its kind said there were major delays. "The initial timeline is going to be blown out of the water," Nick Sloane, Titan's senior salvage master, said at the site of the operation. The 290-metre (951-foot) Costa Concordia weighs in at 114,500 gross tonnes, making it the largest passenger shipwreck by tonnage in history.