Moby Prince tragedy: that night in 1991 the port of Livorno was "strangely crowded"
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24 January 2018 140 were killed on the evening of 10 April 1991 after the impact of the Navarma Moby Prince ferry with the oil tanker Agip Abruzzo off the port of Livorno.
The greatest tragedy of the Italian navy did not occur because of the fog or the imprudence of a commander.
There was also a "substantial absence of intervention" of rescue that could have saved several lives.
And the investigation by the Livorno prosecutor was "lacking and conditioned by various external factors".
The indictment contained in the report of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the causes of the disaster, presented today to the Senate, is a clear indictment.
"A wound still open, 27 years later", premier Paolo Gentiloni defined it.
While the President of the Senate, Pietro Grasso spoke of "a drama that shocked the conscience of the country, a black page" for Italy.
Now, the Minister of Transport, Graziano Delrio considered, "thanks to the great work of the Commission, a veil is raised that gives hope for a new page".
The tanker was in an area prohibited from anchoring.
The fog, absent that evening at sea, was that of silence and misdirection.
A curtain that shows no signs of disappearing given that, the Commission complains, some people heard at the hearing have "denied evidence" and provided "improbable versions of events".
After so many years, a precise reconstruction of the facts is so difficult.
But the parliamentarians - after two years of work and over 110 meetings - believe they have fixed some fixed points: Agip Abruzzo was that evening in a no-anchoring area and its position was not correctly reported during the investigations.
There was also an alteration of the Moby Prince's route among the causes of the impact, "due to factors internal or external to the ferry".
Non-existent Aid
A sore point is that of rescues.
According to the Commission, the deaths of passengers and crew of the Moby Prince did not occur within 30 minutes of the impact for everyone and therefore some lives could be saved.
But there was a "substantial absence of intervention in relation to the ferry" by the Port Authority of Livorno which during "the crucial hours appeared completely unable to coordinate an action" and "lacked adequate tools, such as a radar".
Eni's opacity
The Commission then defines Eni's behavior as "highly opaque".
In fact, according to the report, the tanker did not come from an Egyptian terminal, but from Genoa and therefore the cargo may have been different from that declared.
The insurance agreement signed between the two shipowners only two months after the accident, however, placed "a tombstone on any conflicting hypothesis on the responsibilities between Eni, which assumed the costs of the damage to the oil tanker and pollution, and Navarma, which instead it assumed the costs of compensating the victims ".
Eni was thus able to close the investigations on the activities on board the tanker, on its cargo and obtain its release from seizure after only 7 months, starting it for demolition.
Lack of investigations, conditional
power of attorney The Livorno prosecutor's office was also in the sights of the commission, which for the first instance trial conducted an investigation that was "deficient and conditioned by various external factors".
In particular, according to the report, the investigation was conditioned by the fact that it used part of the summary investigation carried out by the Port Authority itself, the same subjects directly involved in the management of the rescue operations, some of whom were also involved in subsequent judicial events.
The son of the commander of the Moby Prince asks for the review of the trial.
Angelo Chessa, son of Ugo, the commander of the Moby Prince, also lashes out against the Leghorn magistrates of the time, among the victims of the accident.
"The trial of first instance - he observes - was a shame for the Italian justice system. Now we hope for a revision so that the real culprits are punished".