Fire emergency in Greece on Anek’s ferry΄El Venizelos’ – ΄ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΙΟΣ ΒΕΝΙΖΕΛΟΣ΄: ΜΙΑ ΑΚΟΜΗ ΠΥΡΚΑΓΙΑ ΞΕΣΠΑΣΕ ΣΕ ΟΧΗΜΑΤΑΓΩΓΟ ΠΛΟΙΟ ΤΩΝ ΑΝΕΚ LINES

In the night between August the 28th and the 29th 2018 the ship Eleftherios Venizelos, another ferry from Anek Lines, during its travel from Piraeus to Crete with 875 passengers and 141 crew on board, was hit by a serious fire in the garage area, so much that the Captain was forced to declare general emergency and abandonment of the ship.

The emergency operations were not easy and implied the intervent of two firefighting tug boats, ten tenders, 48 firefighters and two emergency teams, as the fire was very quickly expanding from the lower decks and heavy black smoke was inclosing the ship.

The dynamic of the new accident is similar to the disaster of the Norman Atlantic, which as this one, was operating under the flag of the Greek company ANEK: a vehicle parked on board caught fire so that from 12am the board started to send emergency signals to get help from the Coast Guard.

After we assisted dozens of passengers who suffered a devastating experience onboard of the Anek’s ferry Norman Atlantic in the nights of the 28/29 December 2014 where so many lost their life, an all others suffered for their personal safety and for the losses of their personal belongings and for which we already submitted to the Civil Court of Bari our law suit against Anek and Visemar (see our web page on such case: https://giustiziapernormanatlantic.wordpress.com/), we face another case with a fire that broke out in the car deck of a ferry.

The emergency operations on the Eleftherios Venizelos went on during all night and the ship was at the end escorted back into Piraeus and all the passengers were disambarked only during the morning of the 29 August.

Media sources report that the ship has had many problems operating so much that since 2014 it has a discontinuous use, with some short-term rentals (including one to the Greek government for the transportation of migrants from the islands) and sporadic income in service as a replace of other ships Anek stopped for repairs. This raises questions in relation to safety of the ship. These questions will be adressed by with a specific complaint we will file to authorities that have already opened an investigation to find out the causes of the fire and the reasons for the lack of containment of the flames in the garage by the drenching system, providing all the trial expert’s reports on Norman Atlantic about critical issues on fires in Ro/Ro ship’s garage open decks.

Depositata la relazione dei periti -Expert’s report is being filed

NORMAN ATLANTIC criminal trial: after a long wait, it has being finally filed the report, drafted from the experts appointed by the GIP almost a year ago; it is a monumental mass of data, which we will have in our hands shortly.

Given the complexity of the investigations conducted on assignment from Bari Criminal Court, the monumental mass of electronic data annexed to the report and the heterogeneity of the various issues that were addressed into consideration from the college of experts, it was agreed to establish a few number of hearings to present the results.

The hearings will be held – March 20 and 31, and from April the 3rd to the 8th of April – in the Bunker Courtroom of Bitonto, considering the need for adequate space because of the large number of parties allegedly involved in the Trial.

As known, in the meantime we launched a 24 million euro civil action in the Court of Bari, and we are fully confident that the results of the criminal investigations will be decisive to ensure the gross negligence of Anek and Visemar in the Norman Atlantic maritime disaster, canceling the indemnity limits for passengers and victims imposed by the Athens Convention of 1974, and push this trial towards the recognition of punitive damages to be borne by the two shipping companies.

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Processo penale NORMAN ATLANTIC: dopo una lunga attesa è stata finalmente depositata la perizia redatta dagli esperti nominati dal GIP quasi un anno fa; si tratta di una imponente massa di dati, che avremo a nostra disposizione a breve.

Vista la complessità delle indagini svolte su incarico del Tribunale penale di Bari, della monumentale massa di dati informatici allegati alla relazione e la eterogeneità dei vari aspetti presi in considerazione dal collegio dei periti, si è deciso di fissare un certo numero di udienze per illustrare i risultati.

Le udienze si terranno il 20 ed il 31 marzo e dal 3 all’8 aprile nell’aula Bunker di Bitonto, considerando la necessità di uno spazio adeguato per via dell’alto numero di parti presumibilmente interessate al processo.

Come noto, abbiamo nel frattempo avviato la azione civile da 24 milioni di euro presso il Tribunale di Bari, e siamo del tutto convinti che i risultati delle indagini penali saranno risolutivi per accertare la colpa grave di Anek e Visemar nel disastro marittimo del Norman Atlantic, annullando i massimali risarcitori per i passeggeri e le vittime imposti dalla Convenzione di Atene del 1974, e spingere questo processo verso il riconoscimento dei danni punitivi a carico delle due compagnie di navigazione.

New activities onbord for the experts

the experts at work onboard the NA

The college of experts appointed by the judge just informed that on October 12, 2016 will perform an additional access onboard the Norman Atlantic ship, in order to check the fuel levels in the tank of the DGE (Emergency Diesel Generator), as required by the British experts during the access of July 29, 2016, and also in order to verify the status of the MAN control system.

A little more patience will be necessary, as it is expected that by the end of the year it will be closed this preliminary investigation stage, through the filing of the report from the judge’s experts, and the Public Prosecutors in Bari will proceed to the committee’s request to be borne judgment of all suspects.

This will finally lead the passengers to judicially formalize their request for damages compensation in the criminal process that will be established.

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Il collegio dei periti nominati dal Giudice hanno appena comunicato che il giorno 12 Ottobre 2016 eseguiranno un ulteriore accesso a bordo della nave Norman Atlantic al fine di eseguire la verifica dei livelli di carburante presenti nel serbatoio del DGE (Diesel Generatore di Emergenza), cosi come richiesto dai periti inglesi nel corso dell’accesso del 29 Luglio 2016, ed inoltre al fine della verifica allo stato del sistema di controllo MAN.

Sarà necessaria quindi ancora un pò di pazienza per i nostri clienti, in quanto si prevede che entro la fine dell’anno si chiuderà questa fase di indagine preliminare attraverso il deposito della relazione degli esperti, e la Procura di Bari procederà alla richiesta di rinvio a giudizio a carico di tutti gli indagati.

Questo comporterà finalmente per i passeggeri, la possibilità di formalizzare giudizialmente la loro richiesta di risarcimento del danno nel processo penale che si instaurerà.

Pre-Trial probative hearing for #NormanAtlantic

After a long wait, the Public Prosecutors of Bari have finally filed the request for the probative hearing, in order to proceed through the Judge experts, to access the ship and examine, jointly with the other parties, to all the data equipment, and investigation results, carried out so far. The experts will be ask to ensure the nature of the malfunction of the fire alarm system, and all supply systems of the motorship Norman Atlantic, the observance of the regulations on ship safety, loading and securing of vehicles, the effective closing of the garage, identification of the causes of the fire, and its propagation, the correctness of the emergency procedures, evacuation and timing of the alarms, in addition to the reliefs of all technical data, in function to the next processual phase of the case .

The GIP (investigating Judge) of Bari, Dr. Alessandra Piliego, has stated the first pre-trial hearing to May 22- 2015, in order to formulate the investigation requests and to formally give the assignment to a college of experts already appointed. We already know the names of some of this experts, or auxiliaries, for being consultants or experts in the Concordia case.

The long list of injured parties in the hearing decree document, is only partial because it is not updated with all further complaints for several other passengers, only recently filed – in many parties of Italy – close to the expiry period of three months after the fact, and apparently not yet formally dispatched to the attention of Bari court offices. This will not be a difficulty as, out of the fact that only some of the passengers apparently proposed a complaint, the GIP ordered the notification of the decree about the probative hearing with public announce, disposing the publication of the document on institutional sites and its transmission to news agency.

We looked forward to start the judicial proceeding operations, that incredibly seemed destined to remain suspended for a long time more. The situation, we must critically comment, seems to have been resolved only with the media pressure most recently placed by the cruise companies Costa Crociere and MSC, complaining about the occupation of the cruise dock in the port of Bari by the wreck Norman Atlantic, from the gruesome and not very reassuring appearance, containing a lot of heavy trucks still loaded of food in an advanced state of decomposition: so, for them, the Norman Atlantic is an inconvenient and stinks wreck.

They seem to forget, however, that this wreck still holds, allegedly, other passenger’s corpse who have not been found or that were not even recorded in boarding list, and that for more than 120 days, many missing’s relatives are anxious to recover and bring home the bodies of their family members, or at least to know if one of the corpses already found on board or at sea in recent months belongs to their relative.

On Monday we will present a formal request to the Prosecutor of Bari in order to proceed, without further delay, to the sample collection for recognition of DNA on family members of some of the missing, and that firstly ask, indeed legitimately require, to know.

After the expert’s operations will also be possible to proceed to a possible restitution, in favor of claimants, of the recoverable vehicles and personal property, if not destroyed in the fire of 28/12/2014.

Our lawyers Massimiliano Gabrielli, Cesare Bulgheroni and Alessandra Guarini will take part at the hearing on May 22, primarily to monitor and protect the interests of the injured parties, but also to assert immediately passenger’s rights, which are still waiting a real offer from the companies.

As for today, Anek Lines and Visemar have not made any kind of concrete offer, avoiding a diligent behavior but mostly, providing an initial and adequate sum for compensation, due, in relation to the victims’ families, some of which, as in the case of truck drivers, have left wives and children without any form of maintenance .

WE ENCLOSE THE FULL DECREE ORDER THAT STATE THE PROBATIVE HEARING