Morandi Bridge: former CEO Castellucci sentenced to 12 years. Eight years on, a letter of apology from Aspi

Furthermore, a sentence of five years and six months was handed down to Antonino Galatà (former CEO of Spea), for whom the prosecutor had sought seven years.

The former director of concession supervision at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, Mauro Coletta, was subsequently sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment. Meanwhile, Carmine Testa, former director of the MIT’s Regional Inspection Office in Genoa, was sentenced by the court to four years and two months’ imprisonment.

Giovanni Proietti, a former senior official in charge of supervising motorway concessions at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport (MIT), and Bruno Santoro, a former senior official in the Ministry’s Technical Division, have been acquitted. The judges acquitted both men ‘because the act does not constitute a criminal offence’, in relation to the charges of negligent causing of a collapse, road homicide and causing bodily harm in a road traffic accident. Furthermore, in Proietti’s case, the court ruled that proceedings should not be continued, due to the statute of limitations having expired, on certain charges relating to forgery of a public document.

This brings to a close a trial at first instance that spanned 287 hearings. Awaiting the judges’ verdicts in the dock were 57 defendants, including Giovanni Castellucci who, at the time of the disaster, was chief executive of Autostrade per l’Italia. For the defendants, the prosecutors have sought a total of 400 years’ imprisonment and an acquittal. And the longest sentence, 18 years and six months, had been sought specifically for the former CEO.

“Twelve years? I’d say that’s fair enough for him.” That was the first comment from Egle Possetti, chair of the Morandi Bridge Victims’ Memorial Committee, after hearing the sentence handed down to Castellucci. “We are not lawyers,” Possetti emphasised, “and we cannot comment. The 12-year sentence is acceptable, but we need to understand everything else because there were so many defendants.”

On the eve of the verdict, awaited with trepidation and grief by the relatives of the victims, the company, after eight years of silence, has decided to apologise “to the families of the victims, to the people of Genoa and to all Italians”.

This was done by means of a letter of apology previewed on Wednesday by Il Secolo XIX and Corriere della Sera, was the current CEO of Aspi (Autostrade per l’Italia), Arrigo Giana, who has held the post since April 2025. “The actions and decisions of some,” wrote Giana, amongst other things, “have left indelible wounds; therefore, offering today the apologies that were not made yesterday is a moral obligation on our part that goes beyond the determination of responsibility and the course of justice towards the truth.”

Giana was also keen to emphasise that “today, this company is very different from what it was back then: it is on a new course, under state control and with new shareholders. It has a new management team, with new executives who work day in, day out to monitor the network, plan maintenance work and prevent risks”.

But Possetti’s response was extremely harsh: “We are appalled,” he said. “After more than a year at the helm of the club, the chief executive is apologising for the past. The apologies should have been made at the time, but nobody did so.”

“The company needs to set out,” says Possetti, “a ‘detailed and very convincing plan that takes a different approach to the management style prior to the collapse; apologies are not enough’,” he states bluntly. “Concrete action is always required.”