(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 23 - Prosecutors in Crotone on Tuesday
served notification to six officials that they have concluded an
investigation into allegedly negligent delays in the rescue
effort regarding the shipwreck of the Summer Love boat off the
Calabrian town of Cutro on February 26, 2023.
The disaster claimed the lives of at least 94 migrants and
refugees, including 35 children, who perished when their boat
broke apart on rocks in rough seas just off the coast after five
days' sailing from Turkey.
Italian investigators often serve notification to suspects that
they have concluded a probe before making indictment requests.
The case regards alleged delays by the coast guard and finance
police in going out to sea to rescue the boat despite alleged
evidence that it was in distress.
The officials under investigation are four finance police
officers and two coast guards.
They face charges of culpable shipwreck and culpable multiple
homicide.
Eighty people survived the disaster.
Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti, to whom the finance police
answer, stood by the officials.
"Great respect for the judiciary, I defend its work and
independence," Giorgetti said via social media.
"In the same way I strongly defend the work of the finance
police and the port authority, certain that they always acted
exclusively for the public good, as they do every day, together
with the other police forces".
However, Elly Schlein, the leader of the opposition, centre-left
Democratic Party (PD), said the development showed that the
Cutro deaths "could have been avoided if the authorities had
done their duty.
"We have demanded truth and justice since one of the greatest
tragedies for the number of deaths on our coasts took place
between February 25 and 26, 2023," Schlein continued.
"We are still waiting for (Interior) Minister (Matteo)
Piantedosi to answer the question we've been asking since the
day of the shipwreck - why weren't the best-suited Coast Guard
rescue vessels launched?
"The government has been silent since then, but we won't stop
demanding to know the truth". (ANSA).