Costa Concordia captain remains under house arrest
ROME (AP) – An Italian court refused Tuesday to lift an order of house arrest for Francesco Schettino, the captain of the Costa Concordia cruise ship that ran aground off a Tuscan island last month.
By Pier Paolo Cito, AP
The Costa Concordia remains off Italy"s coast Monday. The cruise ship still contains about 500,000 gallons of heavy fuel.
EnlargeCloseBy Pier Paolo Cito, AP
The Costa Concordia remains off Italy"s coast Monday. The cruise ship still contains about 500,000 gallons of heavy fuel.
display_afs_ads(afs_top_ads, "topsponsoredLinks");The court in Florence rejected two requests: one from prosecutors to jail Schettino and another from Schettino to be freed.
Schettino commanded the ship with 4,200 people that ran aground off the island of Giglio on Jan. 13, killing 17 people and leaving 15 missing. He is being investigated on suspicions of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the vessel before all its passengers were evacuated.
PHOTOS: Cruise ship runs aground off ItalyThe ship remains partly submerged off Giglio.
Officials plan to remove about 500,000 gallons of heavy fuel from it, but that has been delayed by rough seas and bad weather. Once the fuel is withdrawn, the massive ship will be broken into pieces and taken away — a process that could take many months.