Avellino, bus massacre: final sentence of 6 years for former Aspi manager Castellucci

The six-year sentence for former Aspi CEO Giovanni Castellucci in connection with the proceedings related to the 28 July 2013 massacre when a bus crashed from the Acqualonga viaduct in the Monteforte Irpino area of Avellino, killing 40 people, is final. This was decided by the Court of Cassation judges. The convicted manager was charged with culpable disaster and manslaughter. As far as Castellucci and other Aspi managers were concerned, the charge was basically that of having violated the rules guaranteeing safe motorway traffic and of having failed to upgrade the entire A16 viaduct with the necessary replacement of the barriers. In fact, the investigators' thesis has always been that if those protective barriers had been up to standard, the bus would not have gone under.

For the manager, who is accused of culpable disaster and manslaughter, the doors of prison are opening. "He is ready to turn himself in, we are waiting for the prison order," say his defence attorneys Filippo Dinacci and Paola Severino, who define 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 essentially rejected the requests of the Prosecutor General's Office, which had called for a bis appeal for the former CEO, who was also involved in the trial for the Morandi bridge collapse in Genoa, to re-evaluate the conviction for manslaughter and acquittal with the formula "because the fact does not exist" for the manslaughter disaster.

The judges also handed down sentences for the other company managers and employees of the Trunk. Six years for the then general manager Riccardo Mollo and for Aspi employees Massimo Giulio Fornaci and Marco Perna. Five years for Aspi manager Nicola Spadavecchia and Aspi trunk manager Paolo Berti. Three years for Aspi manager Gianluca De Franceschi and two employees Gianni Marrone and Bruno Gerardi. A nine-year sentence for the owner of the bus, Gennaro Lametta, and a four-year sentence for the then employee of the Naples Civil Motor Vehicle Authority, Antonietta Ceriola.

In his indictment, the public prosecutor said of the viaduct barriers that 'there was a situation of neglect over many years' and 'guilty inertia on the part of those who were supposed to monitor and control'. The bus, the prosecutor said, had a false certificate of overhaul, which had not been carried out since 2011, and the vehicle 'lacked the minimum requirements to circulate. Lametta put the vehicle on the road in poor condition, putting the lives of the passengers at risk'. The case came before the supreme judges after the Court of Appeal of Naples, in September 2023, had imposed six years on Castellucci, who had been acquitted at first instance.