Giovanni Castellucci, former head of Autostrade per l'Italia, was sentenced on July 16, 2026, to 12 years in prison for his role in the August 2018 collapse of the Morandi bridge in Genoa, which killed 43 people. The sentence, handed down by a Genoa court, fell well short of the 18 years and six months prosecutors had requested (ANSA).

Castellucci was specifically accused of postponing maintenance work on pillar number nine of the Morandi bridge, the structure that failed during a rainstorm at the height of the holiday season on August 14, 2018 (Yahoo News). The charges against him and his co-defendants were sweeping: omicidio colposo plurimo (multiple manslaughter), omicidio stradale (road homicide), crollo doloso (malicious collapse), omissione d'atti d'ufficio (omission of official acts), and attentato alla sicurezza (attack on transport safety) (ANSA).

The trial was among the largest corporate-criminal proceedings in Italian history. An Italian judge ordered 59 people to stand trial in April 2022 (Reuters). Fifty-seven defendants ultimately faced the court in Genoa, with prosecutors seeking prison terms ranging from two years and four months to 18 and a half years across the full set of accused (Reuters).

Michele Donferri Mitelli, a top motorway official, was sentenced to 11 years in prison in connection with the collapse (BBC). The gap between the prosecutors' requests and the sentences imposed on the two most prominent defendants will likely be scrutinized by Italian legal commentators, particularly given the range of charges, which included crollo doloso, a charge implying deliberate rather than merely negligent conduct.

Castellucci was already serving a six-year jail term for a 2013 road disaster known in Italy as the "strage di Avellino" (Avellino massacre) before the Morandi sentence was handed down (ANSA). That prior conviction stems from a separate highway disaster and predates the Genoa collapse, meaning Castellucci now faces consecutive sentences for two fatal infrastructure failures on Italian motorways under his corporate watch.

Reactions from victims' families were measured rather than triumphant. Emmanuel Diaz, whose brother Henry died in the collapse, told Italian television he was "very satisfied" with the verdict. Egle Possetti, whose sister and her family were all killed in the collapse, described the 12-year term for Castellucci as "acceptable" (BBC). Both responses reflect a community that has spent nearly eight years seeking accountability, and neither family member characterized the sentence as adequate justice.

The broader context here is one of systemic infrastructure governance failures meeting criminal accountability after extended delay. The Morandi bridge, a cable-stayed concrete viaduct opened in the 1960s, had long been the subject of engineering concern before its sudden collapse severed a critical artery of the A10 motorway, a key corridor connecting Genoa's port to northern Italy and southern France. The trial has tested whether Italian criminal law can assign individual responsibility for structural failures embedded in corporate decision-making chains, where maintenance budgets, risk assessments, and executive discretion intersect over years or decades.

The verdict arrives eight years after the collapse, a timeline shaped by the scale of the investigation, the number of defendants, and the complexity of the engineering evidence required to establish individual culpability for a structural failure of this magnitude. Castellucci's conviction on the malicious collapse charge, if upheld on appeal, would affirm the prosecution's central thesis that the bridge's deterioration was not merely a story of deferred maintenance, but of deliberate decisions to postpone work the company knew was necessary.

The Italian legal system provides for an automatic appeal process, and the first-instance verdict does not become final until the Corte di Appello renders its judgment. Given the stakes for both sides and the scale of the prosecution, appeals are a near certainty.