«There were people stuck under the boat. With my colleague we immersed ourselves in the water to free them. Some were alive. We gave others cardiac massage. What if we had arrived earlier? I don’t know when the crash occurred, when we arrived there were people gasping for breath. I can say that the people left alive owe it to us too.” Thus the brigadier of the Carabinieri of Crotone Gianrocco Tievoli, the first, together with his patrol colleague, to arrive on the beach of Steccato di Cutro on 26 February 2023, recalled the shipwreck of the gulet Summer Love which caused the death of 85 people – 35 of them minors – and an indefinite number of missing people. He did so by testifying in the Crotone courtroom where the trial is underway on the alleged failure to rescue the gulet Summer Love whose shipwreck caused 94 deaths – including 35 minors – and numerous missing people.
Four financiers and two Coast Guard soldiers appear to answer for the crime of negligent shipwreck and multiple manslaughter. This is Giuseppe Grillo, shift manager of the operations room of the air and naval operations department of the Financial Police of Vibo Valentia; Alberto Lippolis, commander of the Roan of Vibo; Antonino Lopresti, tactical commanding officer of Finance; Nicolino Vardaro, commander of the Air-Naval Finance Group of Taranto; Francesca Perfido, coast guard officer serving at the IMRCC in Rome; Nicola Nania, serving at the V Mrsc of the Port Authority of Reggio Calabria.
Before Tievoli, Brigadier Lorenzo Nicoletta, who was on duty at the operations center, testified and recalled the first words he heard from his colleagues: “It’s a massacre here, there are dead children, dead women.” «At 4.08am – said the brigadier – he called the Roan to the operations center to tell me that they could not find a target reported by Frontex at 11.55pm on 25 February and that their patrol boat had had to return due to adverse weather. At the same time, a call arrived from an international Turkish number which lasted just a few seconds, during which a person said he was in Italy and uttered words that were incomprehensible at the time. From experience I immediately thought they were migrants.”
Nicoletta added that she had called the Captaincy of Crotone but that “she couldn’t send anyone by land and that Finanza was at sea”. The hearing continued with the testimony of Carabinieri Major Nicola Roberto Cara who carried out the investigation. A first part of testimony (which will continue in the next hearings) during which Cara reconstructed the skills of sea rescue.