Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Domnica Cemortan testified at Francesco Schettino's trial, as Alan Johnston reports 
 
 A Moldovan dancer who was on the bridge of the Costa Concordia with Captain Francesco Schettino has admitted she was his lover at his trial. He is charged with manslaughter for the 32 people who died in the crash, with causing the shipwreck on the night of Jan. 13, 2012, and with abandoning ship while many passengers and crew were still aboard. The captain faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. In testimony earlier in the day, ship maitre d' Antonello Tievoli told the court in Grossetto, Tuscany, that he had asked the captain if he could sail close to the island of Giglio because he has family there, the news agency AP reported. She said she had worked for the company that operated the Costa Concordia for about three weeks in December 2011, and had met Capt Schettino on a previous cruise. She had boarded the ship as a non-paying passenger hours before the crash, she said, adding: "When you are someone's lover, no-one asks you for a ticket." She subsequently dismissed the remark as a joke to her translator. Cemortan repeatedly declined to answer whether she is or had been romantically involved with Schettino, relenting only after Judge Giovanni Puliatti warned her that she risked criminal charges. The captain obliged on 6 January, but was apparently disappointed with the result, and ordered the ship's helmsman to plot a closer route for next time. The 290m-long vessel was righted last month in one of the largest, most complex salvage operations ever that took 18 hours and followed months of stabilisation and preparation work by a team of 500 engineers and divers.
– The trial of the captain who ran the Costa Concordia aground is under way, and the early testimony suggests that 32 people died because Francesco Schettino wanted to make good on a favor to a crew member and perhaps impress his lover at the same time. The two big developments: Crew member: Ship maitre'd Antonello Tievoli told the court that he asked the captain to sail close to the Tuscan island of Giglio because Tievoli had family there, reports AP. Schettino did so on Jan. 6 but didn't think he got close enough. He ordered his crew to make a closer pass the following week, and that's when the ship hit the rocks and sank. Lover testifies: Domnica Cemortan, a 26-year-old Moldovan dancer, confirmed to the court, reluctantly, that she was indeed Schettino's lover, reports the BBC. The two dined together before the crash, and she said the captain asked the crew to slow down so he could have dessert before taking the helm for the pass-by of Giglio. Cemortan accompanied him to the bridge and was with him when the ship crashed. She had two memorable quotes today: "When you are someone's lover, no one asks you for a ticket," and, outside court, "Today, I died a second time."