META DI SORRENTO, Italy, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- Fabiola Russo, the wife of Costa Concordia Capt. Francesco Schettino, says her husband is being portrayed unfairly in the media.
In an interview with Paris Match, Russo said she is angry at the way her husband has been treated since the Jan. 13 disaster when the cruise liner carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew went aground on a rocky ledge off the coast of Tuscany, leaving at least 16 people dead.
"My husband is in the center of an unprecedented media case," Russo said. "I have no memory of any air or naval tragedy in which the person in charge has been treated with such violence. It's a manhunt. People are looking for a culprit, a scapegoat, a monster."
Russo said her husband is passionate about the sea.
"In his veins flows of saltwater," she said.
Schettino, under house arrest at the couple's home near Naples, faces charges of abandoning ship, causing a shipwreck and multiple counts of manslaughter.
