Giovanni Castellucci, the former head of Italy's largest highway company, was sentenced on July 16, 2026, to 12 years in prison for his role in the collapse of the Morandi bridge in Genoa, which killed 43 people in August 2018. The sentence, given by a court in Genoa, was shorter than the 18 and a half years prosecutors had asked for (ANSA).

Castellucci was accused of delaying repair work on pillar number nine of the Morandi bridge, the part that gave way during a rainstorm on August 14, 2018, right in the middle of Italy's summer holiday season (Yahoo News). He and his co-defendants faced a range of charges, including multiple manslaughter (causing death through negligence), road homicide, malicious collapse — a charge meaning the bridge's failure was intentional, not just careless — failure to carry out official duties, and endangering transport safety (ANSA).

This was one of the biggest corporate crime trials in Italian history. A judge ordered 59 people to face trial in April 2022 (Reuters). In the end, 57 defendants went to court in Genoa, with prosecutors asking for prison terms ranging from about two years to 18 and a half years across the group (Reuters).

Michele Donferri Mitelli, another senior highway official, was sentenced to 11 years in prison (BBC). The gap between what prosecutors wanted and what the two most prominent defendants actually received will likely get attention from Italian legal experts, especially because one of the charges — malicious collapse — suggests the court found the failure was deliberate, not just an accident.

Castellucci was already serving a six-year prison sentence for a separate 2013 highway disaster in Italy known as the "Avellino massacre" (ANSA). That earlier case involved a different road disaster that happened before the Genoa collapse. Castellucci now faces back-to-back prison sentences for two deadly infrastructure failures that occurred on Italian highways while he was in charge.

Families of the victims responded with restraint rather than celebration. 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, called the 12-year sentence for Castellucci "acceptable" (BBC). Both reactions come from a community that waited nearly eight years for accountability, and neither person said the sentence felt like full justice.

The broader context here is about aging infrastructure, corporate decisions, and whether the legal system can hold individuals responsible when those decisions lead to tragedy. The Morandi bridge, a concrete bridge held up by cables that opened in the 1960s, had raised concerns among engineers for years before it suddenly collapsed. The bridge was part of the A10 motorway, a major route connecting Genoa's busy port to northern Italy and southern France. The trial tested a difficult question: when a structure fails after years of corporate decisions about budgets and maintenance, who among the executives and officials bears criminal blame?

The verdict comes eight years after the collapse. That long wait was due to the size of the investigation, the large number of defendants, and the complex engineering evidence needed to prove who was personally responsible for a disaster of this scale. If Castellucci's conviction on the malicious collapse charge survives appeal, it would support the prosecution's argument that the bridge's decline was not simply a case of delayed repairs but of deliberate choices to put off work the company knew was needed.

The Italian legal system allows automatic appeals, so this verdict is not yet final. A higher court will review the case before anything is settled. Given what is at stake for both sides, appeals are almost certain.