Avellino bus massacre: after the Supreme Court ruling Castellucci turned himself in

The former CEO of Aspi, Giovanni Castellucci, definitively sentenced to 6 years for the massacre of 28 July 2013, when a bus crashed from the Acqualonga viaduct in the area of Monteforte Irpino, Avellino, killing 40 people, has turned himself in. After yesterday's sentence by the Court of Cassation made the conviction final, this morning the Naples Public Prosecutor's Office issued a prison order and Castellucci turned himself in.

Castellucci's lawyers - Filippo Donacci and Paola Severino - had defined the sentence as "incomprehensible: on the basis of the evidence we have provided, we are convinced that Mr Castellucci is totally extraneous to the facts and that he has always carried out his duties as CEO accurately". The judges of the fourth section have essentially rejected the requests of the Prosecutor General's Office, which had requested for the former CEO, who was also involved in the trial for the collapse of the Morandi bridge in Genoa, an appeal bis for the re-evaluation of the sentence for manslaughter and acquittal with the formula "because the fact does not exist" for the manslaughter disaster.

The judges of the Fourth Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court cancelled without referral the contested sentence against two defendants. They also confirmed the 9-year sentence for Gennaro Lametta, owner of the bus, the 4-year sentence against the former employee of the Naples Civil Motor Vehicle Authority, Antonietta Ceriola, and the sentences against the other managers and employees of the defendant section.

The Court of Cassation has put an end to the massacre of the bus that crashed from the Acqualonga viaduct of the A16 Naples-Canosa, but for Maria Loffredo, who lost her mother on that bus, this remains a double tragedy: 'This is not justice and most of all it is a pity that those deaths have not taught anything,' she says in a bitter voice in an interview with Adnkronos. Yesterday, the Supreme Court made final the 6-year sentence for the former CEO of Aspi, Giovanni Castellucci for the massacre of 28 July 2013 in the area of Monteforte Irpino, Avellino, where 40 people lost their lives. The manager was charged with culpable disaster and manslaughter. For Castellucci and other managers, the charge was that they had violated the rules guaranteeing safe motorway traffic.

The road accident occurred on the Acqualonga viaduct on the evening of 28 July 2013 along the A16 motorway near Monteforte Irpino in the province of Avellino. A bus, due to a failure of the braking system and the lack of resistance of the motorway guardrail, plunged from the viaduct causing 40 fatalities. This was the most serious road accident to have occurred in Italy. After the Quattro Cupe tunnel in Monteforte Irpino, a universal joint of the drive shaft broke, severing the braking system. The coach, which had become unmanageable, began to swerve, colliding with various cars and commercial vehicles stuck in traffic on the motorway due to a construction site. Then it had its first impact with the guardrail of the Acqualonga viaduct. The driver tried in every possible way to get the vehicle back on the road, but it hit other vehicles and collided with the viaduct for the second time. The outer new jersey barriers could not withstand the impact of the bus. The bus plunged more than 30 metres off the viaduct into a valley.