The former chief executive of Italy's main highway operator has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for his role in the 2018 collapse of a motorway bridge in Genoa that killed 43 people.
Giovanni Castellucci, the former CEO of the company that operated the bridge, received the sentence after a trial that families of victims had followed closely. Families said the verdict confirmed what they had long argued: that the disaster was preventable.
The Morandi Bridge collapsed on August 14, 2018, sending vehicles and sections of the structure plunging into a riverbed below. It became one of the deadliest infrastructure failures in Italy's recent history and prompted national debate over the maintenance of the country's aging road network.
The verdict was reported by Al Jazeera on July 16, 2026.
