Costa Concordia Dancer Admits Schettino Affair

The Moldovan dancer invited onto the bridge of the Costa Concordia the night captain Francesco Schettino smashed the luxury cruise ship onto rocks in Italy has admitted having an affair with him.

Giving evidence at Schettino's trial for manslaughter and abandoning ship, Domnica Cemortan, 26, refused three times to say whether she was having an affair with Schettino, who is married, before judge Giovanni Puliatti threatened her with criminal charges.

Then, after finally admitting her relationship, something she has long denied, Ms Cemortan was asked if she had boarded the vessel without a ticket.

"When you are the lover of someone they don't ask for your ticket," she replied in Moldovan.

The dancer then tried to stop the court interpreter translating the remark into Italian before she claimed she was joking.

Schettino is accused of steering the 114,000-ton Costa Concordia on the rocks of the Tuscan island of Giglio in January 2012 during a "sail past" of the island.

Ripped open below the waterline, the ship drifted onto rocks in shallow water and tilted onto its side. As the 4,200 passengers and crew struggled to find lifeboats, 32 drowned, some sucked to their death by whirlpools created as the boat capsized.

Investigators reconstructing the moments leading up to the crash have focused on Ms Cemortan, who had worked for three weeks on board the ship as a dancer until December 2011 and boarded as a passenger on January 13, 2012, hours before joining Schettino for the sail past on the bridge.

Schettino, who has been accused of being distracted by the dancer, claims he was misled by poor charts and has blamed a navigator who failed to understand his instructions.

As Ms Cemortan started to give evidence, dressed in a black dress, Schettino's lawyer told journalists "there is no truth" in reports that the dancer was having an affair with Schettino, 53.

Ms Cemortan told the court she dined with Schettino after the ship left the port of Civitavecchia, adding he joked that officials on the bridge handling the navigation would need to delay the sail past so he could finish his dessert.

Under questioning, she admitted her luggage was placed in his cabin next to the bridge, but only because Schettino had not wanted to leave it in the corridor when he invited her onto the bridge with Ciro Onorato, the head waiter on board.

Following the impact on the rocks, Ms Cemortan said she retrieved a civilian jacket from Schettino's cabin which he put on instead of his uniform jacket.

"Save yourself," he then told her, she recalled, before she left the bridge to board a lifeboat.

When asked by lawyer Michelina Suriano if she was having an affair with Schettino, Ms Cemortan's lawyer objected, but was overruled by the judge Mr Puliatti, who said her relationship with the captain affected the credibility of her testimony.

After she refused to answer three times, Mr Puliatti warned Ms Cemortan she risked criminal charges and ordered a two-minute break to allow her lawyer to persuade her.

When proceedings resumed, the judge said: "I hope your lawyer has explained Italian law to you."

But Ms Cemortan continued to hold out, first stating she had not seen Schettino since the crash, then admitting "I was his preferred member of staff" before asking if an "affair" meant having sex.

When the judge replied "You must answer", Ms Cemortan paused, then replied: "Yes, it was an affair."

Earlier in the day, a member of the ship's crew told the court how he had first asked Schettino to perform the sail past at Giglio.

Antonello Tievoli, a Maitre d', said the first time Schettino had tried to get closer up to Giglio, as the Costa Concordia passed the island on January 6, he had not been satisfied and was determined to get closer on January 13.

"But I had meant going two to four miles from the coast of the island," said Mr Tievoli, who claimed he felt guilty for giving Schettino the idea.

Mr Onorato, the head waiter, described in court the chaos on board the ship as passengers fled, claiming some passengers "were punching members of the crew".

Moments after the impact, he added, Schettino turned to him on the bridge and said: "Stay close to me, don't abandon me."