London,Febrauary7,2012: Francesco Schettino, the captain of the ill-fated Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia, could be sentenced to a cumulative total of over 2,500 years in prison if convicted of causing a shipwreck, abandoning ship and multiple counts of manslaughter. According to Italian newspapers, Schettino could face an eight-year jail sentence for every one of the 300 passengers and crew he allegedly left on the crippled vessel when it ran aground off the Giglio island on the night of January 13. It was claimed that Schettino, 52, escaped in a lifeboat and watched the rest of the evacuation from the shore. He would face an additional 15 years in prison if convicted of manslaughter and another 10 years if found guilty of causing the shipwreck, The Telegraph reports. Prosecutors of a court in Florence requested to have Schettino removed from house arrest at his home in Naples and returned to prison. According to the report, prosecutors argued that there is a risk he could try to flee the country or interfere with evidence before his trial starts. Defence lawyers, however, requested that Schettino should be released from house arrest and must be given bail. Salvatore Parascandola, one of his lawyers, said there was no chance of Schettino reoffending. “There is no possibility of him committing the crime again because at the moment there is no possibility of him being given command of a ship. We hope that the court will free him,” Parascandola said.
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