Vannacci and his complaints: “If they call me a fascist I won’t report it because I won’t be offended. It’s like if they called me Napoleonic”

(Adnkronos) – They tried to save themselves in every way, looking for air bubbles, wandering for several minutes from one cabin to another while the sailing ship was sinking. But in the end seven of them had to give up. Because the event “was sudden and unexpected”. And they drowned in the sailing ship Bayesian, in the shipwreck of Porticello (Palermo). For the first time, the chief prosecutor of Termini Imerese (Palermo) Ambrogio Cartosio, 5 days after the “very serious tragedy”, as he himself defines it. In a crowded press conference, the head of the Prosecutor’s Office, together with the young prosecutor Raffaele Cammarano, then publicly announced that, as anticipated by Adnkronos in recent days, the Prosecutor’s Office is investigating for negligent shipwreck and multiple manslaughter. “At the moment – he underlined – against unknown persons”.

The autopsy on the victims’ bodies will be performed “soon.” And if up to this point investigations are against unknown persons, the situation could change soon, Cartosio explained. “When and if we will register people as suspects does not depend exclusively on the recovery of the sailing vessel. There are evaluations that need to be made,” he said, “we must realize that a prosecutor who acquires elements that come from investigations of various types needs to know them well and reflect on them.” The magistrates have not yet assigned the task of autopsies on the seven bodies, even if it will happen very soon.

“At 4:38 a red flare alerted the Coast Guard that there was a problem at sea,” Cartosio said. “The Coast Guard arrived on site with a vessel but the vessel had already sunk. There were some shipwrecked people who were rescued by another vessel anchored about 200 meters from the Bayesian. The captain of the vessel rescued most of the shipwrecked people. Seven were missing.” The first body, that of the ship’s cook, Recaldo Thomas, a 37-year-old from Antigua, was found at dawn on Monday, a few hours after the shipwreck. “Six passengers were missing, whose identity, there’s no point in hiding it, is one of the main elements of the international, I would say global, interest in the affair, that is, people of international standing in the business field,” he said. The other six bodies were recovered. First those of banker Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, and lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife.

Were one or more of the hatches at the stern of the sunken boat open? “These are elements that we cannot reveal for the simple reason that they are information that needs to be confirmed by the subsequent examination of the wreck. Providing them now could be prejudicial to the investigation”, the prosecutor added.

The events unfolded in a few minutes, the sinking was sudden and unexpected. Therefore, the investigation activity that will be based first on the recovery and then on the investigation of the wreck will certainly allow us to provide answers to questions that are currently unknown”, the prosecutor answers the questions on how come the crew was saved almost entirely while six of the guests died and why the captain did not save the passengers first? “The investigations are also focusing on this aspect”, he says.

The Termini Imerese Prosecutor’s Office did not perform drug tests or alcohol tests on the crew or guests, the prosecutor said, adding: “At that moment they were injured and in shock, when we had to understand what had happened we focused on the care of those individuals. With regard to their conduct, not only the passengers but also the crew members are being examined”.

The victims remained behind, in the sailing ship “because they were sleeping. We are trying to ascertain this by cross-referencing the testimonies and verifying what emerges, it is a focal point of the investigation”, continued the prosecutor. “The night of the shipwreck there was a crew member on the bridge”, Cammarano then added, speaking to journalists: “The investigation is aimed precisely at understanding what happened”. The sailing ship Bayesian, he added, sank by the stern in a few minutes.

Then, going into more detail about the investigation, the magistrate, answering questions from journalists from all over the world, reiterated that “at the moment we are not certain that there is a black box – he added – At this stage the focus was on research. We must wait for the recovery of the sailing vessel”.

The commander of the Palermo Coast Guard, Admiral Raffaele Macauda, ​​then explained that “it is the intention of the Bayesian owners to recover the wreck”. “In conjunction with the prosecutor’s office, they have expressed their desire to recover the vessel, there is the availability, with the necessary technical time, to recover the vessel”, Macauda said at a press conference. He then said: “A recovery plan is needed regarding the methods to be used to bring the sailing vessel back to the surface. A plan to be presented to the maritime authority. First, the tanks must be emptied”.

Then, returning to Sunday night, the admiral explained: “The sailing ship could have been at anchor in that area. Besides, there was no storm warning that evening.” Responding instead to a reporter’s question about whether the rescue operation would have been the same if it had been a migrant boat, Macauda replied: “The rescue operation is the same for everyone, the Coast Guard makes no distinction between people, nor the color of their skin. If instead of the sailing ship there had been a migrant boat, we would have done the same thing. I want to point out that in Lampedusa we recovered bodies 60 meters away to return them to their families.”

“The scenario in which we found ourselves operating was unconventional, relating to a vessel sunk at a depth of 50 meters. The dives had speleological characteristics, the operators had to pay attention both to the depth and to the presence of the furnishings that tended to float and obstructed access and exit”. Thus Giuseppe Petrone, the head of the Fire Brigade divers, speaking of the search for the missing. “The difficulties were linked to the fact that the operations had to be carried out paying attention to safety devices, without putting one’s own safety at risk”. And again: “The operations presented considerable difficulties”.