Moldovan dancer defends Costa Concordia captain

The captain of the Costa Concordia was not a 'coward' and did not abandon his
ship, the Moldovan dancer who was on the bridge of the cruise liner when it
smashed into the island of Giglio has insisted.

Domnica Cemortan's defence of Capt Francesco Schettino comes just over a week before the July 9 start of his trial in the town of Grosseto, in Tuscany, on charges of manslaughter, causing a maritime disaster and abandoning ship.

Miss Cemortan blamed other members of the crew for misinterpreting the captain's orders in the panic-stricken minutes before the 950ft-long ship ploughed into a semi-submerged rocky reef close to the shore of the island.

During the chaotic night-time evacuation in freezing cold conditions that ensued, 32 people lost their lives.

"It wasn't the captain who made the mistake,"said Miss Cemortan on an Italian television programme, Pomeriggio 5, in some of her first public comments about the Jan 2012 disaster.

"He knew what he was doing, his orders were clear, but the last officer in the chain of command misunderstood to the point that he had to repeat it.

"But a few seconds later we crashed against the rocks. Had that officer not misunderstood, maybe there would not have been so many people killed."

The captain had dinner with Miss Cemortan, a former cruise ship dancer, on the evening of the disaster and then invited her up to the bridge, leading to claims that he was dangerously distracted from commanding the ship, which was carrying more than 4,000 passengers and crew.

Audio recordings suggest there was chronic confusion on the bridge just before the ship smashed into the rocks, with Capt Schettino yelling "Hard to port!" while his first officer, Ciro Ambrosio, shouted: "Hard to starboard!"

The contradictory commands confused the helmsman, an Indonesian, according to the recordings, which came from the ship's black box data voice recorder.

Miss Cemortan again denied that she had been romantically involved with Capt Schettino, despite the fact that her suitcase was found in his cabin.

She said she dropped it off there while waiting to have a cabin of her own assigned – the Concordia was just a few hours into a week-long cruise of the western Mediterranean when the disaster happened.

"Had I been his lover, my clothes would have been in his wardrobe, not in my suitcase," she said.

"He told me I was very beautiful and he kissed my hand, but I don't understand why everyone wants to know whether I was his lover or not. The most important thing to understand is what happened that night."

She said reports in the Italian press that she had been his lover had ruined her reputation and made it hard to find a job in the year and a half since the tragedy.

She defended the captain from allegations that he left the sinking ship in a lifeboat while hundreds of terrified passengers and crew were still onboard.

"Capt Schettino did not abandon the ship, I saw a commander who was battling (the situation). I left the ship at midnight and he was still there – he is not a coward," she said.

Capt Schettino will be the only defendant in the trial – five other ship's officers and officials from Costa Cruises, the owners of the cruise liner, have successfully sought plea bargains, the details of which will be made known on July 8.

If convicted, Capt Schettino risks up to 20 years in prison.

He insists that he is being made a scapegoat, that the rocks were not marked on his nautical charts and that his quick thinking and manoeuvring of the ship saved hundreds of lives.