Capsized Italian cruise ship captain's home town comes forward to support him

London, Jan 19 (ANI): Local residents from Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia captain's home town have come forward to support him, and have said that he has been 'unfairly vilified'.

Inhabitants of Meta di Sorrento have refused to accept that Francesco Schettino was responsible for the tragedy that has claimed nearly six lives.

Giuseppe Tito, a politician from the local Mayor's office, said he had done his duty in helping others.

"The captain is a hero. The media have got it all wrong. He saved 4,000 lives," The Telegraph quoted Tito, as saying.

Don Gennaro Starita, a pastor said that that he was "really angry" about the way Schettino had been portrayed.

"He has been pilloried by the media," he said. "Humanly speaking, they have killed him. It's a shame. There are so many dead already, why do we want another?" he said.

According to the report, many local residents acknowledged that Schettino, 52, may have made a mistake in sailing too close to the shore, but claimed that he alone could not be held responsible for the disaster and that he had been made a scapegoat.

"Anyone who knows Franco knows that he is a great, great sailor, a great commander and a loyal employee. He is a professional man and would never knowingly have put the lives of his passengers in danger," a local resident from the captain's town said.

Meanwhile, Schettino is being held in custody in a prison in Grosseto, in Tuscany, since being arrested on Saturday, hours after the giant cruise ship ran aground off the Italian coast.

Schettino has been accused of abandoning his ship "well before" the last of his passengers, a criminal offence that can carry a sentence of up to 12 years in jail.

He has also been accused of deliberately steering the ship "too close" to the rocky shore in order to send a greeting signal to someone on the island. (ANI)