The Civil Court of Genoa in Italy has ordered on 14 October the maritime certification company RINA SpA to pay more than EUR 60 million (EGP 3 billion) in compensation to relatives and survivors of about 700 victims of the Egyptian ferry Al Salam Boccaccio 98, which sank in the Red Sea in 2006.
The first-instance ruling, signed by Judge Daniele Bianchi, identifies the negligent conduct of the classification society as the main cause of a disaster that claimed 1,071 lives.
The Boccaccio was one of five sister ships of the “Poeti” series, built for the Italian company Tirrenia in 1968. In 1990, Tirrenia increased the vessel’s capacity to compete with private operators by adding four decks, and in 1999 the five ships were sold to the Egyptian owner El Salam Shipping & Trading.
In 2002, the sister ship Petrarca sank in the Red Sea after a fire, with one death. The Boccaccio’s turn came on the night of 2 to 3 February 2006, while it was travelling from Saudi Arabia toward the Egyptian port of Safaga.
Of roughly 1,400 people on board, most of which were Egyptian migrant workers returning from Saudi Arabia and pilgrims coming back from Mecca, 1,071 died.
The technical reconstruction accepted by the court begins with a fire that broke out in the garage, inside a trailer loaded with luggage.
The captain, who later disappeared, tried to put out the flames with the means at hand. However, water accumulated on the vehicle deck because of drainage difficulties. The additional flooding then accelerated the listing and led to the capsizing and sinking.
In a ruling of about 200 pages, Judge Bianchi confirmed the expert report commissioned in late 2022 from Navy Captain Alfredo Cucinotta and engineers Giovanni Fantoni and Alessio Gnecco.
The key finding is that the classification society failed to report the design defect in the internal discharge of the ballast tanks, which led the captain to believe that his balancing maneuver was effective.
Also, the operating instructions, including a specific warning in Italian about what to do in the event of a leak, were never translated into English or any other language the Egyptian crew understood.
The responsibility attributed to RINA therefore concerns neither the origin of the fire nor the orders given by the captain, but a lack of information and oversight over an element crucial to the safety of the vessel. The court also listed 22 further instances of negligence, among them deficiencies in crew training and in the checking of safety drills.
RINA responded forcefully with a statement carried by the Italian public broadcaster RAI, the Genoese company expressed its “profound disagreement” with the verdict.
Criminal proceedings in Egypt followed a different course. In March 2009, ferry owner Mamdouh Ismail was sentenced in absentia to seven years in prison.
Egyptian officials sought his return from Britain in 2011. His sentence was later declared extinguished under the statute of limitations, and, according to reports citing judicial sources, his name was removed from Egypt’s arrivals watchlist in 2015.
