Morandi Bridge: 32 convicted after eight years. Corriere assembles the "final truth" about the disaster from testimony, not the verdict

After nearly eight years, the Genoa court has handed down a first-instance verdict over the collapse of the Morandi Bridge, which killed 43 people on August 14, 2018 — 32 people convicted, totaling 177 years in prison, led by former Autostrade chief Giovanni Castellucci (12 years). Yet the day after the verdict, Corriere della Sera builds its story not from the ruling — whose reasoning the court will not publish for another six months — but from three years of witness testimony and wiretaps, which it calls the "final truth": several people had known for years that the bridge could collapse — and they stayed silent. For a Slovak reader, this is a mirror of a quiet question about privatized infrastructure and who really guards its safety. Il Post ↗ Corriere della Sera ↗

What Corriere Says: A Mosaic, Not a Headline

Corriere builds its reconstruction on its own archive — around 300 articles since April 22, 2021, when the conclusion of the investigation was announced. For the paper, the emblem of the "final truth" is a single sentence spoken in a Genoa courtroom on May 23, 2023. The testimony came from Gianni Mion, longtime head of Edizione, the Benetton family's holding company that operated the bridge through Autostrade: "In 2010 I learned it could collapse, but I said nothing. Why didn't I speak up? Maybe I was afraid of losing my job." Corriere della Sera ↗

According to Mion, doubts about the bridge's structural integrity were raised at a 2010 meeting because of a serious design flaw. When he asked whether the viaduct's safety was confirmed by anyone independent, he was told it was "self-certified" — that is, confirmed by the company itself. "After that meeting I should have raised an outcry, but I didn't. Maybe because I cared about my position," he admitted in court. Corriere del Ticino ↗

Prosecutors assembled it into a simple narrative: the bridge was in poor condition because maintenance wasn't carried out, and maintenance was skipped to cut costs and boost profits. According to the case file, Autostrade posted profits in the hundreds of millions of euros for years. One wiretap recorded after the disaster captured former maintenance manager Michele Donferri Mitelli, who received 11 years, asking: "Who were they sending to do the inspections — blind men? They were sending blind men!" Corriere della Sera ↗

A Verdict More Symbolic Than It Seems

At the time of writing, Slovak and Czech media had practically not covered this verdict — and even if they had, it would have run as a wire brief: "32 convicted, 177 years." Corriere adds what a wire report lacks — a documentary reconstruction of responsibility spanning both the company and the state. Guilt was split into three strands: the operator Autostrade (Aspi), the inspection auditor Spea, and the overseeing Transport Ministry, whose director of concession oversight, Mauro Coletta, received 5 years. Il Nazionale ↗

Yet the reality of the verdict is more sobering than the numbers suggest. Castellucci's 12 years is a substantial reduction from the eighteen and a half years sought by prosecutors, and it is still only a first-instance ruling. The first statutes of limitation will start applying from April 2032; for Castellucci, the negligent-collapse charge expires in August 2033 and the manslaughter charges only in February 2036. On appeal, the sentences could drop significantly further if the aggravating circumstances are overturned. And the companies Autostrade and Spea themselves already avoided criminal proceedings earlier — through a settlement paying roughly 30 million euros. Genova24 ↗

Limits of This Perspective

Corriere della Sera is a liberal-centrist daily belonging to the RCS group, and its reconstruction carries a strong Italian charge: the Morandi case is also a reckoning with the era of the Benetton family and privatized highways. After the bridge collapsed, the state threatened to revoke the concession, and the Benettons eventually sold their controlling stake in Autostrade to a state-led consortium. Moreover, the "final truth" is an editorial framework built on the case file and testimony, not on the court's reasoning — which has not yet been written and could still reject part of the prosecution's case. And for the victims' relatives, no truth brings comfort: "A just verdict? No. My brother died at 34 and left four children behind. They are the ones sentenced to life," said the brother of one victim. Corriere della Sera ↗

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