The captain of the ill-fated Costa Concordia cruise ship was sentenced to 16 years in prison after being convicted of manslaughter.

Captain Franceso Schettino was controlling the ship when it hit rocks and sank off the Tuscan island of Giglio in 2012, killing 32 people. He was accused of deviating from a planned route, bringing the 950-feet vessel too close to shore and eventually hitting underwater obstruction.

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Ann Decre, who represents French survivors, said the verdict was no enough to cover the human cost.  It will certainly not bring the victims' lives back.

"For me it's six months for each death. And the family of the dead people, it's not six months or 17 years for them, it's forever," Decre said.

The court sentenced Schettino to 10 years for multiple manslaughter, 5 years for causing the shipwreck and another year for abandoning his passengers and crew. The prosecutors had earlier asked for a 26-year jail term.

The Costa Concordia wreck was considered as one of the highest-profile shipping disaster in years. It had over 4,252 passengers and crew on board.

Schettino denied all the charges and argued the wreck was a collective failure of the crew. He is expected to appeal the guilty verdict.

Earlier, Schettino turned emotional during the last day of his 19-month trial. In his final testimony Wednesday, the captain was in tears, saying he spent the last three years of his life "in a media meat grinder."

"All the responsibility has been loaded on to me with no respect for the truth or for the memory of the victims," he said.

The Costa Cruises, a unit of Carnival Corp., had paid a €1-million fine, while prosecutors accepted plea bargains from five of its officials.

Schettino and Costa Cruises were both ordered to pay a total of €30,000 each as compensation to the ship's passengers. They were also ordered to settle millions of euros in compensation to Italian government for environmental damage.

Costa Concordia was on its first leg of a cruise around the Mediterranean Sea when it capsized and sank. It was left abandoned on its side for two-and-a-half years before it was refloated and towed in 2014.

TagsCosta Concordia, Shipwreck, guilty