An investigation into the Costa Concordia cruise liner tragedy which claimed 32 lives yesterday held a key court hearing with hundreds of lawyers and angry survivors.

He told one lie after another to try and cover up what he had done

Captain Francesco Schettino and eight others, including three executives from ship owner Costa Crociere, are under investigation for the January 13 disaster although no-one has yet been charged.

To accommodate the many participants, the hearing was held in a theatre in the Tuscan town of Grosseto near Giglio island where the luxury liner crashed with 4,229 people from dozens of countries on board.

Schettino, who is under house arrest at his home near Naples, was not attending because his lawyer said he was concerned for his safety.

“It’s just as well that Schettino is not coming,” survivor Sergio Amarotto told AFP-TV as he entered the closed-door hearing, which was barred to media.

“He told one lie after another to try and cover up what he had done.”

Another survivor, Francesca Bertaglia, was also critical of the captain and said: “It’s unthinkable not to have sounded the alarm immediately.”

Leaks from the investigation published by Italian newspapers in recent days paint an unflattering portrait of Schettino, who is accused of causing the accident and abandoning ship before all passengers were evacuated.

According to the transcript of an interrogation of the ship’s second-in-command, Ciro Ambrosio, himself under investigation, Schettino was “untruthful” in his communications with the coast guard that night.

“It seemed the captain did not want to admit the real situation,” Ambrosio said in comments published by the Il Fatto Quotidiano daily.

“He was not even raising the alarm to the authorities and was giving them untruthful indications.”

Ambrosio also told investigators that Schettino was not wearing his glasses when he took over command of the ship after dinner, just before the ship crashed, because he had forgotten them in his cabin.

He said Schettino arrived with a young Moldovan woman, Domnica Cemortan, who stayed on the bridge, apparently contravening official rules.

Ambrosio’s lawyer said his client had been “the only officer on the bridge who gave different orders from those indicated by the captain.”

Earlier leaks from the investigation included claims that Schettino was involved in a 2010 incident while at the helm of a cruise ship and that there was a hard-partying atmosphere of drugs and alcohol on board.

The ship’s owner, Costa Crociere, has said that Schettino was never involved in any accidents in his six years as captain.

The company, Europe’s biggest cruise operator, also stressed that it implemented strict rules against drugs and excessive drinking.