Costa Concordia captain in court

GROSSETO, Italy The former captain of the shipwrecked Costa Concordia cruise liner came to an Italian court on Monday to hear the evidence against him, while passengers who survived the Jan. 13 collision in which 32 died showed up to look him in the eye.

Wearing dark glasses, Francesco Schettino used a back entrance to slip into a theater in the Tuscan city of Grosseto that is serving as a courtroom. He made no comment to reporters outside.

The Concordia ran aground and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio after Schettino took it off course and brought it close to the island as part of a stunt.

Hearings this week will help decide whether a judge will order trial for Schettino, who is charged with manslaughter, causing the shipwreck and abandoning ship while passengers and crew were still aboard. He denies the charges. Any trial is unlikely to begin before next year.

More than 1,000 survivors, victims' relatives and their lawyers are attending the closed-door hearing to discuss the evidence against Schettino and eight other defendants, including crew members and officials from Concordia owner Costa Crociere SpA, which is owned by Miami-based Carnival Corp.

"We want to look him in the eye to see how he will react to the accusations," said German survivor Michael Liessen, 50, who was attending Monday's hearing along with his wife.

Last month, four court-appointed experts delivered a 270-page report of what went wrong that night based on an analysis of data recorders, ship communications equipment, testimony and other evidence.

The experts -- two admirals and two engineers -- lay most of the blame for the collision with the reef and the botched evacuation on Schettino. But they also noted that not all crew members understood Italian, not all had current certification for evacuation procedures, and not all passengers had participated in evacuation drills.

Passengers described a confused and delayed evacuation, with many of the lifeboats unable to be lowered because the boat was listing too far to one side. Some of the 4,200 people aboard jumped into the Mediterranean and swam to Giglio, while others had to be plucked from the vessel by rescue helicopters hours after the collision.

Schettino has insisted that, by guiding the stricken ship to shallower waters near Giglio's port instead of immediately ordering an evacuation, he potentially saved lives. He has claimed that another official, and not he, was at the helm when the ship struck.

The timeline in the expert report, however, makes clear that he had assumed command six minutes before the ship struck the reef.

Final salvage operations are slated to begin this week, reports CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey, and Schettino is suing the owners of the cruise line for wrongful dismissal.

[boboneil49]

Looks like Carnival should not have out sourced the job of captain.

[Blumbo]

C'mon Matt, why don't you just go ahead and blame the whole thing on God for putting that stinking lsland there in the first place. Jeez.

Forgive me. This is your opinion and right. It just strikes me as odd that this cavalier captain could generate any kind of admiration or approval after what he did.

PS. I too, wore the 4 stripes of a captain.

[matt6052]

His actions after the boat was struck and before he abandoned ship are noteworthy. Had he not aimed for the shoreline, then the ship would be deep on the bottom now. In fact, the reason they must secure it before raising it is because it is in danger of sliding off into the deep water. They can make it a hospital ship.