The dramatic shipwreck of the gulet Summer Love which at dawn on 26 February 2023 caused the death of 94 migrants, including 35 minors and at least a dozen missing people, found its first judicial response in a courtroom.
The magistrate of the Court of Crotone Elisa Marchetto sentenced
Gun Ufuk , the 29-year-old Turkish citizen accused of being one of the four smugglers
, to 20 years and a 3 million fine
, the only one to ask for an abbreviated trial.
Ufuk was found guilty of all the crimes he contested: aiding and abetting illegal immigration, negligent shipwreck, death as a consequence of another crime.
The preliminary hearing judge then accepted the requests of prosecutor Pasquale Festa who in his indictment underlined the convergence of the testimonies, "18 people said that Ufuk was driving the boat".
According to the Crotone Prosecutor's Office "there is a perfect participation of him in the organization of the trip so much so that he was on a boat that was supposed to leave later and replaced the damaged one".
"The intent of the journey - the prosecutor remarked - was to disembark on a beach but every navigation rule was violated in front of an unknown coast and this is the responsibility of all crew members".
An accusation that the accused tried in every way to mitigate by defining himself, during the interrogation that preceded the indictment, as a
politically persecuted
person who had only volunteered to be the boat's mechanic as he didn't have the money to pay for the trip. towards Italy: "
I have never driven the boat
. I am so sorry for the pain caused to the families of the dead people", his defense.
According to him, he was arrested in Turkey in 2019 because he was considered part of the movement that had attempted the 2016 coup and for "those considered coup plotters it is not easy to live in Turkey", he said.
His thesis, however, did not convince the judge who inflicted 20 years in prison on him.
The judge also ordered compensation for damages to the civil parties made up of the victims' families, the mystery of the Interior and the Calabria Region.
However, the request of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers which had asked for one million euros for reputational damage was not recognised.
A request against which Ufuk's defender, the lawyer Salvatore Falcone, took sides, in whose opinion his client "is a scapegoat for those who should have intervened".
"I believe - said the lawyer - that the death of those people was not due to a wrong maneuver or the shipwreck because, if there had been any rescue unit at that moment, there would not have been all these deaths. The constitution of a civil action on the part of the government is out of place because I believe that those who had to intervene out of moral obligation should have avoided asking for damages for the image that they themselves have damaged".
The issue raised by the lawyer -
the alleged delay in rescue
- is the subject of a parallel investigation by the Crotone Prosecutor's Office in which six people are under investigation, three covered by omissis and three financiers serving in Vibo Valentia, Taranto and Crotone.
The investigation should reach its conclusion in the coming months.
That will be the opportunity to verify what the magistrates have ascertained and whether there are criminal responsibilities also on the rescuers' front for what happened.
Meanwhile, the trial of the other three alleged smugglers continues before the Court - a fifth died in the shipwreck - and will resume on 13 February.
The accused: 'I was the mechanic, I traded the trip'
"I was only the mechanic of the boat and I exchanged the payment of the trip for the job of engineer to repair the engine. I never drove the boat. I am so sorry for the pain caused to the families of the dead people".
This is what Gun Ufuk said, the 29-year-old Turkish citizen accused of the Cutro shipwreck, for whom this morning the public prosecutor Pasquale Festa - at the conclusion of the abbreviated trial - asked for a sentence of 20 years in prison and 2, 1 million fine, holding him responsible for the crimes of aiding and abetting illegal immigration, negligent shipwreck and death following aiding and abetting illegal immigration.
Ufuk, defended by the lawyer Salvatore Falcone, subjected himself to questioning during a long hearing in which, although admitting to being part of the crew, he provided his version of events: "I had to escape from Turkey for political reasons. I was arrested because I was considered to be part of the movement that led the attempted coup in 2016. In 2019 I was in prison for eight months because I criticized Erdogan and his policies. When I got out for two years I had to report myself to the police and I "now there is a ban on leaving Turkey. For those who are considered coup plotters it is not easy to live in Turkey. We are discriminated against by the authorities and we cannot find work. For this reason I decided to leave, but I did not have the necessary money and so I agreed to to be the mechanic of the boat that was supposed to arrive on the Italian coast and return. The organizers of the trip introduced me to Bayram, my friend, who was the captain of the boat and who died in the shipwreck".
"The boat - said Ufuk - was driven by my friend Gulem Byram (who died in the shipwreck, ed.) who had already made other trips. I was close to him but I never drove. That night I heard that the boat had touched something and I saw Byram trying to turn: he gave gas but the engine stopped. I was scared and I dived because the boat was tilting. I swam for half an hour and I arrived on the beach, Byram didn't abandon the boat. There was chaos, people shouting. Before the accident the other people on board called the emergency numbers several times."
The accused then said that he escaped to Austria "together with Mohamed, the captain of the first boat which then broke down (he is Mohamed Abdessalem, 26 years old, a Syrian arrested on 5 December in the Lecce prison where he is being held for another reason, ed.). We walked for 5 hours and then I remember there was a port we took a taxi to Bari. Mohammed paid. From Bari we went to Rome and then towards Germany, but in Salzburg he stopped me police".
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