Cocaine reportedly found on Costa Concordia captain's hair
Lawyers for survivors of the capsized Costa Concordia cruise ship have pressed for new drug tests on the ship’s captain after traces of cocaine were reportedly found on a hair sample.
But the consultant who did the analyses for prosecutors stood by the results. which found no presence of the drug in urine samples or within the hair itself.
Italian consumer protection group Codacons is representing some survivors of the shipwreck of the cruise liner, which rammed a reef near a Tuscan island the night of January 13.
Under Italian law, those attaching civil suits to a criminal case must be informed of, and allowed to monitor, evidence and other developments in the probe.
Codacons said today that some traces of cocaine were found on a hair sample and in an envelope containing the sample, but noted that a urine sample taken from Captain Francesco Schettino and an analysis of the hair itself found no presence of the drug.
It called that finding “very strange” and said it had asked prosecutors on Friday to order new testing to see if the samples might have been contaminated.
The Italian news agency ANSA quoted the forensic medical expert who carried out the toxicology test as dismissing Codacons’ concerns about the external trace of cocaine.
The expert, Marcello Chiarotti, said the modest trace of cocaine “was a marginal problem that absolutely doesn’t invalidate the results of the analysis” that found none of the drug inside the hair itself or in the urine. Traces of cocaine in the urine or inside the hair itself would have pointed to consumption.
Schettino is under house arrest in his home near Naples while he is investigated for alleged manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his ship. He has denied abandoning ship and insisted the reef was not marked on navigational charts.
Thirty-two people are believed to have died, including 15 whose bodies have not been found.
Chiarotti was described as expressing confidence in the results. “We will be able to clear this problem up later,” he told ANSA.
ANSA said that traces of the drug might have resulted if Schettino’s hair had come in contact with someone who had handled cocaine.
The Concordia was carrying some 4,200 passengers and crew on a week’s cruise on its standard route when it crashed into the reef during dinner a couple of hours after leaving an Italian port.
Divers have been searching sections of the wreckage where some of the missing were last seen in hopes that more bodies can be recovered. After much delay, in great part because of stormy weather, pumping operations have been under way for a week to remove some 500,000 gallons of fuel from the ship’s tanks.
