ITALY - TUSCANY COAST - 19 FEBRUARY 2012 CAPSIZED SHIP
SURVIVORS QUESTION
COCAINE TEST ON CAPTAIN
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Lawyers for survivors of the capsized Costa Concordia
cruise ship are asking for new drug tests on the captain after traces of
cocaine were found on the outside of a hair sample but not in his body. The consultant
who did the analyses for prosecutors is standing by his results, which found no
trace of the drug in Captain Francesco Schettino’s urine samples or within the
hair. Traces of cocaine were found on a sample of the ship captain’s hair.
Italian consumer protection group Codacons and the lawyers are demanding a repeat of the
tests, claiming the samples from Capt. Francesco Schettino may have been
contaminated or mislabelled.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 has asked prosecutors to order DNA testing of
the samples to confirm they are indeed those of Schettino, to eliminate the
possibilities the samples were accidentally mislabelled or switched. Codacons
spokesman Stefano Zerbi said, the samples might have been poorly preserved and
indicate a strange passive contamination in which cocaine somehow got onto
Schettino’s hair even though he wasn’t using the drug.
Medical expert Marcello Chiarotti who carried out the
toxicology test was quoted as saying 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. Bruno Leporatti the Captain’s lawyer said the test results yielded
nothing new. “We have always been sure that Schettino didn’t take drugs.”
Captain Schettino 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.
Traces of the drug might have shown up if Schettino’s
hair had come in contact with someone who had handled cocaine. The samples were
taken on Jan. 17.
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